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THE  IMMORTAL  SEVEN 


THE 
IMMORTAL  SEVEN 

£/?.  ^^VZ)  M/?5.  ADONIRAM  JUDSON 

SAMUEL  NEWELL,  HARRIET  NEWELL 

GORDON  HALL,  SAMUEL  NOTT 

LUTHER  RICE 


By  JAMES  L.  HILL,  D.  D. 

Boys  in  the  Late  War,"  "  Woman 
"  The  Scholar's  Larger  Life,"  etc. 


Author  of  "  Boys  in  the  Late  War,"  "  Woman  and  Satan ' 


Published  in  Connection  with  the  Centennial  of  the 

AMERICAN  BAPTIST  FOREIGN  MISSION  SOCIETY 

by  the 

AMERICAN  BAPTIST  PUBLICATION  SOCIETY 

PHILADELPHIA 
BOSTON  CHICAGO  ST.  LOUIS 


Copyright  1913  by 
A.  J.  ROWLAND,  Secretary 

Published  December,  1913 


CJa 


JONATHAN  ACKERMAN  COLES,  M.  D.,  LL.  D. 

AND  ALL  KINDRED  SPIRITS  WHO  CAN   SAY 

"it's  THE  CAUSE,  the  cause!" 


436200 


"  Let  me  review  the  scene 
And  summon  from  the  shadowy  past 
The  forms  that  once  have  been. " 


Stranger  than  fiction. 


PREFACE 


In  these  days  when  the  business  instinct  is  uppermost, 
it  sobers  one  to  find  that  the  epochs  which  are  distinct 
and  resplendent — the  creative,  the  redeeming,  and  the 
expanding — overshadow  all  others  in  influence  and  im- 
portance. The  formative  period  with  which  we  are  here 
concerned  is  transcendent  because  of  a  matchless  group 
of  extraordinary  persons,  and  it  conditions  the  epochs 
that  follow. 

The  first  missionaries  from  this  country  "  to  the 
heathen  in  Asia"  were  remarkable  characters.  They 
were  raised  up  by  Providence  for  a  definite  and  im- 
portant purpose.  As  Bezaleel  and  Aholiab  were  dis- 
tinctly inspired  to  "  devise  cunning  works,"  and  as  upon 
Edison  and  Bell  were  laid  nature's  hands  of  wondrous 
anointing  to  invent  instruments  and  to  solve  mysteries  in 
the  material  world,  so  these  chosen  people  were  ordained 
to  enter  a  door  of  amazing  opportunity.  The  Immortal 
Seven  did  not  have  to  be  found.  They  were  at  hand, 
equipped,  ready  for  the  tide.  And  they  had  no  superiors. 
It  is  touching,  almost  unaccountable  to  see  how  solitary 
these  devoted  spirits  were  at  certain  points,  as  at  the 
head  of  the  unorganized  host  they  bore  the  Ark  of  the 
Covenant  until  it  had  rest  in  the  zayats  of  darkest  India, 
completing  thus  a  sacred  chapter  in  the  world's  history. 

Not  less  significant  is  the  fact  that  the  nineteenth 
century,  during  which  the  progress  of  the  world  in  mate- 
rial prosperity  and  in  the  advancement  of  the  race  in  all 
that  affects  human  happiness  is  unparalleled,  becomes 
supremely  great  on  account  of  its  discoveries,  among  the 

vii 


V1U  PREFACE 

most  important  of  which  was  woman,  who  in  previous 
centuries  scarcely  had  an  existence  in  the  sense  in  which 
she  is  now  recognized  in  the  church.  Anticipating  even 
Mary  Lyon  and  Jennie  Lind,  and  strangely  beginning 
almost  evenly  with  a  century,  in  the  morning  watch  of 
a  better  age  there  appear  before  the  eyes  of  the  aston- 
ished church  the  binary  stars  from  Bradford. 

New  England  at  the  time  was  the  most  virtuous  coun- 
try in  the  world.  The  population  was  largely  rural  and 
singularly  free  from  vice,  and  was  being  mysteriously 
prepared  to  disclose  human  nature  on  its  noblest  side. 
The  Immortal  Seven  exhibit  both  the  quality  and  the 
flavor  of  the  New  England  church  and  the  times  at  their 
best.  Having  youthful  ardor  together  with  spiritual 
ambitions  and  incentives,  they  were  the  flower  of  the 
young  men  and  women  of  that  day. 

The  book  is  designed  for  those  who  love  biography 
and  missions,  for  young  men  and  women,  for  those  who 
must  make  quick  preparation  for  a  missionary  meeting, 
for  those  interested  in  Salem  as  the  place  of  so  many 
beginnings,  and  for  a  use  to  which  some  of  these  pages 
have  already  been  turned,  in  meetings  where  one  reads 
aloud,  while  others  sew,  making  articles  for  our  workers 
in  the  field. 

The  Judson  Centenary  swept  up  into  unexpected  prom- 
inence the  most  famous  ordination  in  Christian  history. 
As  nothing  is  so  dull  as  an  anniversary  with  nothing  to 
celebrate,  at  a  meeting  convened  in  anticipation  of  the 
signal  event,  the  writer  was  delegated  to  give  to  the 
press  the  statement  of  our  occasion  of  public  rejoicing; 
and  so  he  sat,  for  many  weeks  together,  at  the  center  of 
an  enlarged  whispering  gallery,  while  persons  who  had 
priceless  letters,  treasured  pictures,  bits  of  history,  or 
items  of  suggestion,  reported  them  to  him  until,  in  the 
language  of  Elihu,  the  son  of  Barachel  the  Buzite,  "  I 


PREFACE  IX 

said,  I  also  will  show  mine  opinion,  for  I  am  full  of 
matter."  As  the  situation  developed,  an  unexpected 
impression  was  gained  touching  the  immortality  of  good- 
ness and  usefulness.  How  few  the  memorials  of  the 
savage !  But  such  is  the  vitality  of  goodness  that,  "  doom 
it  to  silence,  and  the  stone  shall  cry  out  of  the  wall, 
and  the  beam  out  of  the  timber  shall  answer."  The 
determining  influence  looking  toward  this  publication 
came  from  repeated  requests  for  items  that  had  been 
given  to  the  press  that  they  might  be  preserved  in  scrap- 
books,  and  from  the  fact  that  such  paragraphs  as  were 
printed  fruited  in  gifts,  as  will  be  seen.  If  anything 
has  been  done  to  humanize  a  missionary  who  had  become 
chiefly  a  steel  engraving,  if  the  note  of  reality  is  sug- 
gested, if  something  of  true  life  inheres  in  these  pages, 
so  that  they  will  carry  forward  in  any  degree  not  mis- 
sions only,  but  the  spirit  of  missions,  the  work  will  fulfil 
the  largest  wish  of  one  who  has  engaged  in  this  study 
from  the  love  of  it,  whose  whole  hope  is  that  the  book, 
coming  from  the  heart,  may  reach  other  hearts. 


CONTENTS 

Chapter  Page 

I.  One  of  the  Sacred  Spots  of  Earth i 

II.  What  Manner  of  Manhood  ! 21 

III.  Diversities  of  Gifts 43 

IV.  Through  Death  to  Life  of  Power 61 

V.  A  Prophet  Mighty  in  Word  and  Deed 81 

VI.  From  the  Centennial  Pisgah 101 

VII.  Salem,  Center  of  Pilgrimage 129 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Page 

Ordination  of  Judson  and  his  associates.    Frontispiece 

Old  Tabernacle  Church,  Salem 4 

Harriet  Newell 8 

Sailing  of  the  "  Caravan  " 12 

Samuel  Worcester  16 

Samuel  Newell  16 

Lucius  Bolles   16 

Judson  with  last  leaf  of  Burman  Bible 24 

A  village  in  Burma 26 

Adoniram  Judson    50 

Ann  Hasseltine  Judson 50 

Washermen  of  Upper  Burma 34 

An  elephant  at  work $6 

A  village  in  Burma 40 

A  schoolhouse  in  Burma 40 

A  typical  old  chapel  in  Burma 46 

Where  Gordon  Hall  died 52 

Shan  carts  at  Maymyo 66 

xi 


Xll  ILLUSTRATIONS 

Pagb 

/.  Ackerman  Coles,  M.  D.,  LL.  D 74 

Immanuel  Baptist  Church,  Rangoon 76 

Campanile  at  Rangoon 78 

A  typical  village  in  India 92 

Present  Tabernacle  Church,  Salem 108 

Ordination  of  1912  in  Tabernacle  Church,  Salem..  112 

An  idol  in  the  mud 118 

A  Burman  buffalo 122 

A  village  school  in  India 126 

Roger  Williams  House  in  Salem 134 

Tablet  on  Tabernacle  Church,  Salem 148 


ONE  OF  THE  SACRED  SPOTS  OF  EARTH 


ONE  OF  THE   SACRED  SPOTS  OF  EARTH 

WHAT  is  it  in  tis  that  inclines  us  to  visit  Mount  Ver- 
non? What  is  that  principle  in  our  nature  that 
induces  us  to  go  to  Gettysburg,  Waterloo,  Plymouth,  and 
Bethlehem?  It  is  one  of  the  fine,  curious  characteristics 
of  human  nature  that  the  affections  of  strong  men  in 
remote  parts  of  the  earth  turn  tenderly  to  the  places 
where  they  were  born.  Who  can  visit  his  mother's  grave 
entirely  without  emotion?  We  do  not  originate  this 
feeling.  It  seems  to  be  native  in  us  all.  And  there  are 
shrines  of  the  soul  like  the  Scala  Sancta,  Bethel,  Jacob's 
Well,  the  Mount  of  Olives,  and  the  way  to  Damascus. 

With  much  evident  emotion,  in  a  supreme  shining 
moment,  Dr.  Adoniram  JudsOn  went  into  the  Tabernacle 
Church  in  Salem,  Massachusetts,  and  bowed  his  head 
upon  the  spot  where  he  had  been  consecrated  to  the  mis- 
sionary service.  It  was  to  him  one  of  these  Palestines 
and  Meccas  of  the  mind  which  are  held  in  imperishable 
remembrance  and  each  one  of  them  "hath  a  tongue." 
It  is  a  memorial  place  in  his  heart  history.  In  visiting  it 
he  lived  his  life  over. 

Judson  had  been  out  of  the  country  for  a  generation. 
It  was  his  only  return  to  his  native  land.  No  other  mis- 
sionary who  survived  had  passed  through  such  incredible 
toil,  suffering,  hardship,  and  privation.  He  had  been 
in  prison  for  a  year  and  seven  months,  nine  months  in 
three  pairs  of  fetters,  two  months  in  five,  six  months  in 
one  pair,  and  two  months  a  prisoner  at  large.  Coming 
up  out  of  the  deep  waters  of  bitterness,  impelled  by  a 

3 


4  THE   IMMORTAL  SEVEN 

V-  *,.;-*«  *  <••, 
strange  force  within  him,  he  made  a  spiritual  pilgrimage 
to  that  sanctuary  where  he  had  solemnly  knelt  at  the 
threshold  of  his  career.  While  from  his  father  there 
was  bequeathed  to  him  a  certain  Roman  loftiness  of 
character,  from  his  gentle  mother  he  inherited  a  pecu- 
liar warmth  of  temperament  and  an  exquisite  tenderness 
of  heart;  and  as  the  memories  of  the  past  sprang  now 
vividly  before  his  mind,  his  tears  gushed  forth  as  freely 
as  a  child's,  and  the  record  is  left  us  that  he  wept  aloud. 
His  thoughts  were  those  of  the  German  soldier,  who  with 
two  of  his  companions  crossed  the  German  Rhine  to  fight 
the  battles  of  the  Fatherland;  later,  scarred  and  worn, 
retracing  his  way  homeward,  on  reaching  the  river  he 
remembered  the  unreturning  forms  of  those  who  had 
earlier  crossed  this  stream  with  him  and,  swept  with 
emotion,  said  to  the  ferryman: 

Take,  O  boatman,  thrice  thy  fee, 

Take,  I  give  it  willingly, 

For  invisible  to  thee, 
Spirits  twain  have  crossed  with  me. 

At  the  ordination  Judson  had  said  of  his  associates 
who  were  to  go  with  him  to  India :  "  We  are  seven,  like 
the  five  loaves  and  two  fishes  blessed  by  our  Lord  where- 
with to  feed  the  multitude."  Now  recalling  the  past 
tenderly,  with  the  forms  of  all  his  companions  about 
him,  as  he  follows  their  fortunes,  the  affecting  thought 
surges  through  his  mind  that,  except  himself  and  one 
who  remained  but  three  years  upon  the  field,  they  have 
all  left  the  earth,  and  their  lives  in  every  case  ended  in 
tragedy. 

The  Law  of  Association 

On  Thursday,  the  sixth  of  February,  1812,  occurred 
the  unique  solemnities,  without  precedent  in  all  religious 
annals,  when  Adoniram  Judson,  Gordon  Hall,  Samuel 


OLD   TABERNACLE   CHURCH,   SALEM 


ONE   OF   THE  SACRED   SPOTS   OF   EARTH  5 

Newell,  Samuel  Nott,  and  Luther  Rice  were  ordained 
the  first  missionaries  from  America  "  to  the  heathen  in 
Asia."  It  has  now  become  the  most  famous  ordina- 
tion in  this  country  or  in  any  land.  Ministers  and 
people  flocked  to  the  scene  from  all  the  surrounding 
towns.  The  mother  took  her  babe,  that  she  her- 
self might  be  present  and  the  child  be  enabled  later 
to  tell  a  family  tradition  to  the  generations  following, 
which  in  this  locality  has  been  very  faithfully  done, 
as  we  shall  see.  It  will  be  noticed  where  the  en- 
graver comes  to  our  help  that  the  mother,  infant  in 
arms,  is  pictured  not  only  as  present,  but  well  to  the 
front,  the  facts  of  the  case  requiring  the  artist  thus 
to  feature  the  unexampled  occasion.  The  Tabernacle 
was  packed  like  rows  of  new  pins  in  a  paper.  Throngs 
were  peering  down  from  the  gallery.  The  aisles  could 
be  traced  only  by  the  ridges  or  seams  made  by  the  people 
standing.  Within  the  walls  were  not  less  than  fifteen 
hundred  persons.  "  Some  would  say  there  were  at  least 
two  thousand,"  who  filled  the  church  and  hung  on  every 
word.  "  In  that  great  assembly  there  was  a  stillness  like 
the  stillness  of  God  when  he  ariseth  to  bless  the  world." 
The  entire  rapt  convocation  seemed  moved  as  the  trees 
of  the  wood  are  moved  by  a  mighty  wind.  Pent-up  emo- 
tion could  no  longer  be  restrained.  Eyes  overflowed  with 
Christian  sympathy  at  the  affecting  scene.  An  irrepres- 
sible sighing  and  weeping,  which  broke  at  times  the 
silence  of  the  house,  attested  how  deeply  the  heart  of  the 
vast  congregation  was  touched.  There  are  times  when 
men  are  so  associated  together  that  they  reflect  their 
thoughts  and  feelings  upon  each  other.  All  the  persons 
present  seemed  to  lose,  at  least  to  merge,  their  individual 
self-consciousness  in  the  prevailing  spirit  of  the  assem- 
blage. A  sweet  contagion  prevails,  cumulative  in  its 
effect,  multiplied  and  intensified  by  the  number  who  are 


O  THE  IMMORTAL   SEVEN 

present,  when  each  member  of  an  audience  feels  that  he 
is  surrounded  by  other  people  who  are  experiencing  the 
same  emotions  as  his  own.  When  men  are  thus  moved 
by  the  same  beneficent  impulse,  we  can  plainly  see  the 
imperishable  essence  of  religion  that  makes  it,  in  Vinet's 
words,  the  eternal  youth  of  the  human  race.  A  feeling 
of  religious  obligation,  hitherto  confined  to  a  few  choice 
spirits,  has  now  spread  beyond  them  and  amounts  to  a 
passion. 

There  is  something  hallowed  about  the  romance,  the 
ardor,  and  the  all-overness  of  a  first  love.  When  the 
sacred  flame  reveals  itself  in  a  Robert  Emmet,  a  Hugh 
Miller,  or  a  John  Newton,  the  world  turns  aside  to  see 
this  great  sight,  why  the  bush  burns  with  fire  and  is  not 
consumed.  It  is  said  that  the  great  characters  of  history 
commonly  act  their  part  under  a  perceptible  sense  or 
presentiment  of  their  mission.  There  is  every  kind  of 
evidence  that  this  was  true  on  this  occasion.  The  time  to 
favor  Zion,  the  set  time,  had  come.  A  suffusion  of  solemn 
and  grateful  joy  gave  such  force  to  Christian  feeling 
that  it  was  felt  among  the  churches  throughout  the  land. 
It  was  the  prevailing  idea  that  it  was  no  ordinary  event, 
but  had  relations  to  a  great  future  and  to  all  peoples  and 
tribes  and  tongues.  All  were  amazed,  and  glorified  God, 
saying,  "  We  never  saw  it  on  this  fashion."  "  No  enter- 
prise comparable  to  this  had  been  undertaken  by  the 
American  church,"  said  Doctor  Spring.  "  All  others 
retire  before  it  like  stars  before  the  rising  sun."  "  It 
was  a  sound  in  the  tops  of  the  mulberry  trees,  and  some 
of  us  held  our  breath." 

At  the  moment  when  the  five  candidates  kneel  and 
five  conspicuous  ministers  Of  New  England — admirably 
represented  by  real  likenesses  in  the  picture,  from  left 
to  right,  Morse,  father  of  the  brilliant  inventor  of 
the  telegraph,  Griffin,  Spring,  Wood,  Worcester— place 


ONE   OF   THE   SACRED   SPOTS   OF   EARTH  J 

their  consecrating  hands  upon  the  bowed  heads  of  the 
five  young  men,  the  first  to  be  sent  from  this  coun- 
try abroad,  the  solemn  grandeur  of  the  day  rises  to 
a  climax;  a  scene  is  presented  which  is  of  its  kind 
the  most  interesting  since  the  Saviour  ascended,  and 
more  melting  than  any  other  company  of  missionaries 
had  passed  through;  and  those  present  who  afterward 
came  to  witness  other  farewells  of  missionaries  contrasted 
them  as  incomparably  less  moving  and  overpowering  than 
this.  It  was  a  millennial  moment.  It  suggests  Antioch 
and  the  mysterious  voice  which  said :  "  Separate  me  Bar- 
nabas and  Saul  to  the  work  whereunto  I  have  called 
them."  The  son  of  Doctor  Worcester  states  that  only 
under  pressure  would  his  father  put  forth  his  full 
strength.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  at  this  ordination 
his  father  put  forth  his  strength.  There  is  more  real 
energy  and  fervor  and  heart  noticeable  in  his  work  than 
in  that  of  any  Others.  The  books  say  that  he  came  home 
to  his  audience.  His  glowing  imagination  lights  up  the 
banks  of  the  Indus,  the  Ganges,  and  the  Sal  win.  In 
great  elevation  of  feeling  he  swings  out :  "  By  the 
solemnities  of  this  day,  you,  Messrs.  Judson,  Nott, 
Newell,  Hall,  and  Rice,  are  publicly  set  apart  for  the 
service  of  God  in  the  gospel  of  his  Son  among  the  heathen. 
You  are  the  precursors  of  many  that  shall  follow  you." 

The  First  Bride  of  a  Foreign  Missionary 

It  is  at  the  height  of  the  solemn  rites  which  awaken 
in  us  the  emotion  of  sublimity,  and  during  the  ordaining 
prayer  that  Ann  Hasseltine  Judson,  the  bride  of  a  day,  is 
pictured  kneeling  in  the  aisle  near  her  gifted  husband, 
who  is  to  be  styled  the  Apostle  to  the  Burmese.  Harriet 
Newell,  the  star-eyed  beauty,  sometimes  called  the  Belle 
of  Bradford,  is  also  present,  and  is  three  days  later  to  be 
married,  at  eighteen,  to  Samuel  Newell,  making  up  the 


8  THE  IMMORTAL  SEVEN 

number  familiarly  called  the  Sacred  Seven.  Both  young 
women  in  beautiful  portrayal  look  down  from  the  walls 
of  Bradford  Academy  upon  every  visitor.  Little  was  it 
thought  by  those  who  so  admired  those  fine  Bradford 
Academy  young  women  that  they  both  would  so  soon 
be  embalmed  in  the  memory  of  the  church,  become  a  dis- 
tinguished and  imperishable  part  of  its  records,  and  add 
a  touch  of  tenderness  to  all  missionary  annals  by  their 
youthful  consecration,  their  faith,  and  purpose  unfalter- 
ing in  death. 

Aye,  call  it  holy  ground, 

The  place  where  first  they  trod. 

Up  to  this  day  Burma  had  been  little  more  than  a 
geographical  expression.  But  even  the  small  boys  who 
were  present  were  so  greatly  impressed  that  later,  holding 
their  little  prayer-meetings  on  the  rye  scaffolds  over 
the  floors  in  their  fathers'  barns,  they  named  themselves 
Burma,  Bombay,  and  Ceylon.  Doctor  Woods,  one  of 
those  by  whom  the  cradle  of  the  infancy  of  missions 
was  rocked  and  who  does  not  figure  in  New  England 
history  as  an  enthusiast,  states  that  "  intense  excitement 
spread  rapidly  through  New  England  and  all  the  States 
and  extended  to  other  lands."  Students  from  Phillips 
Academy  and  the  Theological  Seminary  in  Andover  had 
walked  to  Salem,  sixteen  miles.  The  services  began  at 
eleven,  and  continued  until  three.  In  those  days  time  was 
taken  to  do  the  thing  to  be  done.  The  students,  "  with- 
out refreshment,"  attempted  to  return  on  foot  to  Andover. 
One  of  them,  Ephraim  H.  Newton,  in  a  letter  written  two 
days  later  (sent  to  the  author  by  his  grandson),  states 
not  only  that  he  is  still  very  badly  way-worn,  but  also 
that  the  audience  was  very  large  and  as  solemn  as  the 
house  of  death.  William  Goodell,  the  future  notable 
missionary,  the  hero  of  "  Forty  Years  in  the  Turkish 


HARRIET  NEWELL 


•      •   *  c  i    e    » r  ■  <         a 


ONE   OF   THE   SACRED   SPOTS  OF   EARTH  9 

Empire,"  tells  us  that  the  day  was  the  coldest  of  the 
winter.  After  the  sun  had  gone  down  he  became  ex- 
hausted, and  would  have  perished  had  not  some  theo- 
logical students,  overtaking  him,  placed  him  between 
two  of  them,  and  they,  bearing  his  whole  weight,  by  taking 
turns,  succeeded  in  carrying  him  along  till  the  suburbs  of 
Andover  were  reached,  when  a  bed  was  spread  for  him 
upon  the  floor  before  the  fire.  He  was  filled  for  life 
with  the  missionary  spirit,  "  being  so  thoroughly  inocu- 
lated with  it  that  a  reinoculation  was  never  necessary." 

First  Lessons  in  Missions 

On  the  day  of  the  ordination  the  American  Board,  which 
assumed  the  responsibility  of  sending  the  men  abroad, 
had  $500  in  the  treasury,  and  only  $1,200  in  sight.  But 
the  atmosphere  had  become  so  electric,  so  intense  was 
the  public  feeling,  so  marked  was  the  promise  of  the  five 
young  missionaries,  who  obviously  possessed  talents  and 
attainments  of  the  highest  order,  and  such  was  the  appre- 
ciation people  had  of  their  spirit,  heroisms,  and  sacrifices, 
that  money  flowed  spontaneously  toward  them.  Gifts  for 
them  were  laid  on  the  communion  table,  and  the  table  be- 
came an  altar  of  offerings,  so  that  before  they  sailed  the 
American  Board  had  received  $6,000,  and  the  missionaries 
were  given  the  money  for  their  outfit,  which  was  to 
be  the  same  as  a  year's  salary,  and  besides  had  received 
their  full  stipend  in  advance  for  a  year  and  a  quarter. 
They  were  showered  with  kindnesses  and  gifts  and  diver- 
sified tokens  of  personal  regard,  lavished  in  part  by  some 
who  doubted  the  wisdom  of  the  venture  and  trembled  for 
the  issue,  believing  it  rash,  hazardous,  and  premature.  At 
the  Emersons'  in  Beverly,  where  the  Judsons  were  enter- 
tained, the  door  was  opened  by  an  unknown  hand  and  a 
purse  of  fifty  dollars  in  coin  was  thrown  in,  with  the  label, 
"  For  Mr.  Judson's  private  use."    Mrs.  Norris  had  earlier 


10  THE   IMMORTAL   SEVEN 

given  two  hundred  dollars  for  his  outfit.  The  mission- 
aries were  so  loaded  with  kindnesses  that  Harriet  Newell 
wrote  to  her  mother :  "  We  have  every  accommodation 
for  the  voyage.  Friends  in  Salem  are  very  kind.  I  have 
received  many  valuable  presents ; "  and  Mrs.  Judson 
wrote  from  India,  "  No  missionaries  were  ever  blessed 
with  greater  favors." 

By  the  war  of  1812  certain  ports  of  the  country  were 
shut  up  by  a  long-continued  embargo;  New  York,  for 
example,  had  been  in  a  bottle  tightly  corked.  But  sud- 
denly and  unexpectedly  by  special  permission  of  the 
government,  two  vessels,  the  brig  "  Caravan,"  from  Salem, 
and  the  good  ship  "  Harmony,"  from  Philadelphia,  were 
about  to  sail  for  Calcutta,  and  they  would  take  the  young 
missionaries  to  the  heathen  in  Asia.  Strict  orders  were 
given  that  they  should  speak  no  vessel  by  the  way,  nor 
reply  to  any  overture.  The  ordination  was  hastened 
by  the  desire  of  the  owners  and  captains  to  avail  them- 
selves of  the  long-sought  privilege  and  get  out  to  sea. 
The  "  Caravan  "  left  the  wharf  on  February  thirteenth, 
and  moved  out  into  Salem  Harbor  and  cast  anchor,  await- 
ing the  first  fair  wind.  It  was  an  inclement  winter  day, 
not  unlike  that  wherein  the  "  Mayflower  "  discharged  her 
precious  freight  on  the  ice-bound  Old  Colony  coast. 
The  vessels  had  this  point  of  resemblance  too,  that  their 
passengers,  while  appreciated  by  a  few,  were  not  recog- 
nized in  their  full  power  by  the  eyes  of  the  world.  Both 
were  destined,  as  the  embodiments  of  great  moral  prin- 
ciples, to  unfold  vital  changes  in  nations  and  empires  and 
to  become  distinguished  factors  in  the  world's  history. 

The  Call  of  the  Deep 

On  Monday,  February  seventeenth,  there  was  a  violent 
snowstorm.  But  on  Tuesday  the  eighteenth,  though  it 
was  bleak  and  cold,  Captain  Heard  of  the  "  Caravan  " 


ONE   OF   THE   SACRED   SPOTS   OF   EARTH  II 

became  very  desirous  of  sailing  immediately  after  dinner, 
and  soon  everything  was  stirring.  Mr.  I.  W.  Putnam, 
then  a  law  student  in  Judge  Putnam's  office,  later  a  dis- 
tinguished minister  at  Middleboro,  where  the  "  Putnam 
meeting-house  "  is  still  a  venerated  feature  in  a  familiar 
landscape,  procured  a  sleigh  at  a  stable,  went  to  Mr.  Isaac 
Newell's  and  carried  Samuel  Newell  and  the  lovely  Harriet 
to  the  wharf ;  and  Mr.  S.  B.  Ingersoll,  afterward  minister 
at  Shrewesbury,  took  Mrs.  Judson  from  the  house  of 
Eliphalet  Kimball  out  to  the  end  of  Crowinshield's  wharf. 
Judson  himself  preferred  to  walk,  for  he  had  a  great 
aversion  to  farewell  scenes;  when  he  left  his  father's 
house  in  Plymouth,  and  when  with  his  wife  he  left  her 
home  in  Bradford,  it  was  in  each  case  before  the  family 
had  risen,  indicating  his  desire  that  there  should  be  no 
ado  in  his  adieu.  When  they  met  on  the  wharf,  it  was  a 
confused  time.  Everything  was  being  hurried  on  board. 
But  though  Captain  Heard  had  been  so  resolute  and 
sudden  in  his  determination  to  sail  on  that  tide,  he  had 
to  give  it  up,  as  the  wind  died  away,  and  he  himself 
did  not  go  aboard  the  vessel  finally  until  the  next  morn- 
ing. Many  friends  lingered  about  the  harbor  until  the 
night  drove  them  home.  Mr.  Putnam,  whom  Harriet 
Newell  in  her  diary  calls  Mr.  P.,  and  Mr.  Ingersoll,  who 
is  styled  in  the  memorial  Capt.  I.,  acted  in  a  sort  of 
representative  way  for  the  Salem  people  in  doing  the 
courtesies  and,  keeping  up  the  spirit  of  the  young  mis- 
sionaries, remained  aboard  the  "  Caravan "  all  night. 
The  evening  was  spent,  as  Harriet  Newell  tells  us,  "  in 
singing,  and  I  never  engaged  in  this  delightful  part  of 
worship  with  greater  pleasure.''  The  next  morning,  Feb- 
ruary nineteenth,  soon  after  sunrise,  it  was  raw  and 
cold,  but,  the  wind  being  west,  Captain  Heard  saw  his 
chance  to  clear  the  coast,  and  so  put  to  sea,  carrying 
Mr.  Putnam  and  Captain  Ingersoll  out  with  him  for  six 


12  THE   IMMORTAL   SEVEN 

or  eight  miles,  when  they  returned  in  the  pilot-boat. 
There  were  three  other  sailing  vessels  that  cleared  from 
Salem  the  same  day.  An  excellent  picture  exists  of  the 
missionaries  waving  their  farewells  and  of  the  gathered 
friends  expressing  their  godspeed. 

Multum  in  Parvo 

The  "  Caravan  "  was  but  ninety  feet  long,  twenty-six 
feet  broad,  and  measured  two  hundred  and  sixty-seven 
tons.  She  was  built  by  Enos  Briggs  in  1802  at  his  ship- 
yard, a  little  west  of  the  present  "  Union  "  bridge.  She 
seems  insignificant  compared  with  the  sea-monsters  now 
being  built.  But  the  "  Caravan  '■  carried  a  grander  destiny 
and  a  surer  freight  than  Caesar  and  his  fortune,  and  her 
cabin  became  a  consecrated  and  memorable  place,  and 
may  be  called  the  nursery  of  the  American  Baptist  mis- 
sionary enterprise.  Not  only  the  Burmans,  but  the  in- 
habitants of  Bombay  and  Ceylon  must  always  revert 
to  the  "  Caravan  "  as  the  "  Mayflower  "  of  their  history. 
The  sturdy  little  craft  was  seventeen  weeks  on  her  pas- 
sage. She  consumed  a  year  and  one  month  on  her 
trip,  and  when  she  returned  in  March,  18 13,  she  paid 
$26,975  duties  at  the  Salem  Custom  House,  a  very  good 
contribution  to  Uncle  Sam's  treasury  by  the  famous  little 
vessel,  whose  name  had  been  made  immortal  by  those 
who  took  the  outward  voyage  in  her.  The  Doctor  Shreve 
House,  29  Chestnut  Street,  in  Salem,  stands  to  this  day 
the  monument  of  her  substantial  earnings  for  her  owner, 
Mr.  Pickering  Dodge. 

Time  for  Further  Missionary  Education 

Immediately  after  the  ordination  on  February  sixth, 
Gordon  Hall,  Luther  Rice,  and  Samuel  Nott  hastily  de- 
parted for  Philadelphia,  where  they  remained  until  Feb- 
ruary eighteenth,  attending  public  meetings  and  inciting 


iW^t-N* 

ffr 

■■t.        1 

mmTj* 

ONE   OF  THE   SACRED   SPOTS   OF   EARTH  1 3 

the  beginnings  of  missionary  feeling  among  the  Presby- 
terians in  their  various  churches.  "  The  attention  paid 
to  the  missionaries  by  the  Philadelphians  and  the  deep 
interest  they  appeared  to  take  in  their  success  excite 
emotion  which  language  cannot  well  express/'  Gifts  and 
tokens  and  articles  of  equipment  were  bestowed  upon 
them  with  a  prodigal  hand.  Some  of  the  young  men  had 
taken  medical  lectures,  where  now  for  nearly  a  fortnight 
the  young  heroes  of  the  cross  found  themselves  for  a 
very  fact  in  a  city  of  brotherly  love.  On  the  eighteenth, 
the  very  day  that  their  associates  went  aboard  the  "  Cara- 
van "  to  spend  the  night  in  Salem  harbor,  they  left  Phila- 
delphia in  a  packet  and  dropped  down  to  Newcastle.  On 
Monday  the  twenty-fourth  they  left  the  Capes  of  the 
Delaware  in  the  "  Harmony,"  and  reached  India  on 
August  eighth.  It  was  the  sympathetic  interest  of  the 
captain  and  his  willingness  to  provide  their  passage,  the 
first  that  had  been  found,  that  precipitated  the  ordina- 
tion and  departure  of  all  of  them  from  this  country  in 
midwinter. 

The  Policy  of  Faith 

All  the  missionaries  that  had  ever  been  sent  from  this 
country  were  now  afloat  upon  the  high  sea.  When  the 
century  was  near  its  dawn,  like  Joan  of  Arc  they  heard 
the  future  calling  them,  "  Up,  out,  and  away."  With 
the  courage  of  Saint  Paul  when  he  crossed  over  into 
Macedonia,  they  with  sublime  heroism  were  crossing  over 
into  a  neglected  country,  wild  and  boundless,  bearing 
precious  seed,  not  knowing  the  things  that  should  befall 
them  there.  First  and  foremost  in  the  order  of  merit 
as  well  as  of  time,  they  expatriated  themselves  for 
Christ's  sake  and  the  gospel's.  They  were  to  hunt  up 
the  sheep  of  the  wilderness,  and  feel  their  way  along  an 
untrodden  path.    They  were  taking  the  Sabbath  with  them 


14  THE   IMMORTAL  SEVEN 

across  the  sea.  All  hail  to  the  advent  of  the  missionary 
spirit!  A  new  scene  is  opening.  It  is  the  heroic  period 
of  a  missionary  age.  The  story  of  missions  can  never  be 
told,  and  no  list  of  heroes  can  ever  be  completed,  without 
them.  They  have  put  forth  an  influence  that  now  encircles 
the  earth  like  a  zone  of  light.  The  Anglo-Saxon  race  is 
henceforth  to  be  God's  chosen  people.  All  the  world  shall 
be  full  of  his  glory :  "  I  will  be  exalted  among  the  heathen, 
I  will  be  exalted  in  the  earth."  Participating  in  the  same 
solemn  ceremonial,  they  all  bowed  together  here  at  the 
same  sacred  shrine,  and  have  at  length  gone  to  bow 
together  before  One  clothed  in  a  vesture  dipped  in  blood, 
whose  name  is  called  the  Word  of  God. 

Enlistment  of  Three  Denominations 

It  will  be  noticed  that  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Judson,  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Newell,  sailed  from  New  England,  the  heart  of 
Congregationalism ;  that  Hall,  Nott,  and  Rice  sailed  in  the 
"  Harmony "  from  Philadelphia,  the  heart  of  Presby- 
terianism,  thus  turning  two  great  denominations  toward 
Salem,  the  cradle-place  of  foreign  missions  in  this  coun- 
try. But  a  greater  denomination  has  even  a  larger 
interest  in  the  event,  for  by  their  Bible  studies  aboard 
ship,  one  man  in  each  vessel — Judson  in  the  brig  "  Cara- 
van "  and  Rice  in  the  ship  "Harmony" — the  separate- 
ness  of  the  men  in  study  is  a  feature  of  it — began  the 
investigations  which  resulted  in  their  becoming  Bap- 
tists; and,  singularly  enough,  a  letter  written  to  this 
country  in  appeal  for  sympathy  and  support  from  the  new 
household  of  faith,  as  a  distressed  spirit  turns  instinct- 
ively to  a  strong  man,  was  addressed  to  Dr.  Lucius  Bolles, 
the  pastor  of  the  First  Baptist  Church  in  Salem;  thus  a 
wonder-working  Providence  caused  a  third  denomination 
— each  of  the  three  with  almost  exactly  equal  reasons — to 
trace  the  beginning  of  its  work  for  the  heathen  here  to 


ONE  OF  THE   SACRED  SPOTS  OF   EARTH  1 5 

this  Bethlehem  of  Missions.  Thus  did  the  new  volume  of 
missionary  interest  divide  into  three  currents,  and  thereby 
it  watered  a  wider  range  of  the  moral  wilderness.  All 
flowed  from  the  same  source,  and  took  the  same  general 
direction. 

Love  for  the  Bible,  in  the  Missionary  Enterprise 

To  the  Salem  Bible  Translation  and  Foreign  Missionary 
Society  belongs  the  distinction  of  being  the  first  Baptist 
organization  in  America  for  promoting  foreign  missions. 
Bible  lovers,  it  will  be  seen,  were  earliest  active  in  mis- 
sionary operations.  To  give  the  Bible  to  the  heathen  was 
the  leading  object  in  their  existence.  After  our  regular 
missionary  organizations  were  established  there  were 
still  many  who  preferred  to  adhere  to  societies  that  existed 
chiefly  to  promote  Bible  translation.  When  the  American 
Board  applied  to  the  Legislature  of  Massachusetts  for  an 
act  of  incorporation,  resistance  was  made  on  the  ground 
that  "  It  was  designed  as  a  means  for  exporting  religion, 
whereas  there  was  none  too  much  at  home."  It  was  re- 
plied that  "  religion  is  a  commodity,  of  which  the  more  we 
export,  the  more  we  have."  It  was  moved  to  add  the  fol- 
lowing section :  "  That  one- fourth  of  the  annual  income  of 
said  Board  of  Commissioners  shall  be  exclusively  devoted 
to  defray  the  expense  of  translating  the  Holy  Scriptures 
into  foreign  languages,  and  of  printing  and  circulating  the 
same."  Thus  those  opposed  to  missionaries  had  nothing 
but  praise  for  the  deathless  Book.  The  feeling  that 
the  unevangelized  should  have  Bibles  is  not  now  appre- 
ciated in  estimating  the  cause  of  the  rise  of  the  Home 
Missionary  idea  in  our  own  country.  Some  of  the  finest 
States  in  the  Middle  West  were  in  the  Louisiana  purchase, 
a  Latin  Province,  where  under  Spanish  and  French  rules 
Protestant  churches  and  worship  had  been  forbidden,  and 
the  Bible  subordinated  or  excluded.     Under  Governor 


1 6  THE   IMMORTAL   SEVEN 

Claiborne  a  Bible  could  not  be  found  with  which  to  admin- 
ister the  oath  of  office  in  that  "  God- forgetting,  God-pro- 
voking portion  of  our  country."  The  earliest  mission- 
aries were  Bible-bearers,  the  sacred  page  was  speaking 
paper. 

Doctor  Bolles  became  the  first  paid  secretary  of  the 
Baptist  General  Convention,  and  from  Salem  was  en- 
kindled that  holy  flame  now  recognized  everywhere  in 
the  intense  missionary  feeling  of  the  second  largest 
denomination  of  Protestant  America,  which  has  more  con- 
verts than  any  other  on  the  foreign  field  to-day.  The 
Baptist  missionary  magazine,  "  Missions,"  which  in  its 
present  form  has  a  host  of  readers,  takes  the  ground  that 
"  no  one's  missionary  education  can  be  complete  who  has 
not  paid  a  visit  to  historic  Salem  with  its  sacred  mission- 
ary shrine."  Once  Salem  had  a  larger  shipping  than 
New  York.  It  would  have  been  high  praise  for  New 
York  at  one  time  to  be  told  that  her  foreign  shipping 
would  ever  become  equal  to  Salem's.  But  this  magazine 
goes  on  to  affirm  that  the  "  world  may  forget  that  Salem 
once  stood  first  among  American  cities  in  regard  to  com- 
mercial activity,  but  it  should  never  forget  that  it  also 
stood  first  in  projecting  missions.  Her  ships  of  trade 
sailed  every  sea,  but  none  carried  such  precious  freight 
as  the  '  Caravan/  " 

Christian  Sagacity 

The  genius  of  that  constructive  period,  when  no  pagan 
nation  had  heard  the  name  of  Christ  from  American  lips, 
was  Dr.  Samuel  Worcester,  a  rare  man  of  sterling  worth, 
a  natural  leader  and  teacher  of  men,  who  could  no  longer 
smother  the  holy  fire  that  was  burning  in  his  own  large 
heart.  Foremost  in  everything,  he  had  first  suggested  the 
organization  of  the  American  Board  and  then  its  name, 
raised  its  first  money,  became  its  first  secretary,  and  he 


>       •   1  »< 


SAMUEL    WORCESTER 


SAMUEL   NEWELL 


,,  ^C~,SiSr-_ ^J^JZ1:Z^ 


ONE  OF  THE   SACRED   SPOTS  OF   EARTH  17 

figures  in  all  the  initial  campaign  with  the  character  of 
a  Washington.  The  elegant  Macaulay  observes  that,  as 
the  sun  illuminates  the  tops  of  the  hills  while  it  is  still 
below  the  horizon,  so  truth  is  discovered  by  the  highest 
minds  before  it  becomes  manifest  to  the  multitude.  This 
remark  applies  with  peculiar  fitness  to  Doctor  Worcester. 
His  prescience  gave  him  something  of  the  same  advantage 
over  minds  that  the  telescope  gives  the  eye  of  the 
astronomer  over  other  eyes.  The  morning  star  which  had 
appeared  indicated  to  him  the  near  approach  of  the 
rising  sun.  The  few  rays  which  then  gilded  the  distant 
summits  were  to  him  pledges  of  the  day.  He  read  aright 
the  signs  of  the  time.  What  men  call  foresight  is  insight. 
When  the  fig  tree's  branch  has  become  tender  and  is  put- 
ting forth  leaves,  we  know  that  summer  is  near.  The  man 
who,  like  Worcester,  with  anointed  sight  sees  the  trend 
of  events  and  discerns  forces  put  in  motion  by  an  unseen 
hand,  and  who  gauges  correctly  the  rising  tide  of  public 
feeling,  has  a  finer  wisdom  than  the  bird-in-the-hand 
man  who  has  an  eye  for  the  tangible,  but  not  for  the 
potential,  and  sees  only  a  barrier  in  what  is  half-developed 
and  so  to  him  premature.  Where  seed  is  small,  there  may 
be  too  a  prepared  soil.  Falling  at  another  time  or  place, 
the  spark  that  has  fired  a  train  or  blown  up  a  fortress, 
would  have  simply  expired.  It  was  Worcester's  con- 
ceded prominence  in  this  transcendent  enterprise  that 
made  it  natural,  even  inevitable,  that  the  ordination 
should  be  in  Salem.  When  it  became  plain  that  his  labors 
in  missionary  matters  in  addition  to  his  pastoral  work 
had  broken  his  health,  he  stated  that  he  did  not  want  to 
recall  anything  that  he  had  done  for  missions,  saying  in 
substance  that,  seeing  what  influences  had  gone  out  from 
Salem,  he  was  willing  to  pay  the  price.  Furthermore, 
it  was  a  bequest  of  $30,000 — the  most  generous  gift  at 
that  time  ever  made  to  such  an  enterprise  in  any  country 

B 


l8  THE  IMMORTAL   SEVEN 

and  unequaled  by  any  other  gift  to  the  Board  for  half  a 
century — from  Mrs.  Norris,  who  lived  on  the  present 
site  of  the  Merchants  National  Bank,  on  Essex  Street,  in 
a  house  which  is  now  moved  directly  back,  and  stands 
dismantled  at  Number  10  Barton  Square — that  caused  the 
American  Board  to  be  incorporated  to  receive  and  admin- 
ister the  money;  that,  more  than  anything  else,  deter- 
mined the  Board  to  undertake  an  independent  enterprise; 
and  that  caused  Doctor  Worcester  to  take  the  ground 
that  "  the  dwelling  of  good  Mr.  Norris,  in  Essex  Street, 
Salem,  must  have  a  chronological  place  in  the  missionary 
register,  before  the  Meadow  and  the  northwest  lower 
room  of  the  East  College,  at  Williamstown." 

Where  Streams  of  Influence  Meet 

To  the  parlor  of  that  house  on  a  winter  night,  in 
1806,  came  Doctor  Spring,  of  Newburyport,  with  a  plan 
for  founding  a  theological  school.  The  evening  was 
spent  in  explaining  the  plan  to  Mr.  Norris  and  his  wife, 
but  they  separated  for  the  night  without  any  promise  of 
help  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Norris.  He  was  in  doubt,  he 
said,  from  the  fact  that  his  great  object  was  the  foreign 
missionary  enterprise.  This  was  about  three  years  and  a 
half  before  any  measures  were  taken  for  the  formation 
of  the  American  Board.  The  next  morning,  however, 
Mr.  Norris  said  to  Doctor  Spring:  "My  wife  tells  me 
that  this  plan  for  a  theological  school  and  the  missionary 
enterprise  is  the  same  thing.  We  must  raise  up  the 
ministers  if  we  would  have  the  men  to  go  as  missionaries.', 
With  this  idea  of  the  matter,  he  promised  to  give  ten 
thousand  dollars  to  what  is  now  Andover  Seminary,  and, 
going  to  the  bank,  he  drew  out  the  whole  amount  in  silver, 
which  he  carried  to  his  chamber  and  dedicated  with 
prayer  to  the  cause  he  had  so  much  at  heart.  He 
explained  the  offering  of  the  amount  in  silver  by  saying, 


ONE   OF   THE   SACRED   SPOTS   OF   EARTH  IO, 

"  That  he  never  heard  that  paper  money  was  given  to 
build  the  temple." 

There  is  no  half -providence.  God's  providences  always 
match.  The  same  Salem  fortune  that  was  to  cause  the 
incorporation  of  the  American  Board  and  to  become  its 
substantial  corner-stone,  was  thus  used  in  preparing  the 
very  men  who  were  to  go  forth  under  its  auspices  when 
it  in  turn  should  be  established.  "  It'll  be  a  sorry  time  for 
us,"  said  a  recent  visitor,  "  when  we  forget  Salem  and 
the  *  Caravan '  and  the  Norris  House  and  the  Tabernacle. 
I  realized  this  as  I  walked  almost  with  bared  head  the 
streets  of  the  city  where  one  hundred  years  ago  the  earliest 
missionaries  rang  out  from  the  belfry  of  the  ages  the 
signal  for  a  crusade,  and  a  new  birthhour  of  history 
struck." 

Even  when  the  world  is  evangelized,  millions  in  Asia 
must  always  turn  to  this  missionary  Mecca  as  people 
in  England  go  and  stand  before  St.  Martin's  Church 
in  Canterbury,  with  which  are  associated  Augustine 
and  the  first  missionaries  to  England — once  heathen 
ground,  her  people  distinctly  classed  as  pagans  and  sold 
as  such  in  the  markets  of  Rome. 


II 


WHAT  MANNER  OF  MANHOOD! 


II 

WHAf   MANNER  OF   MANHOOD ! 

IF  ever  a  missionary  has  been  practically  canonized,  it 
is  Judson.  His  name  shines  in  the  firmament  of  mis- 
sions as  a  star  of  the  first  magnitude.  His  sayings  and 
maxims  have  been  reverently  treasured  up  and  em- 
balmed like  Joseph's  bones.  He  seems  to  have  possessed 
an  unusual  share  of  the  heroic  character.  When  the 
Almighty  has  a  great  work  to  be  done,  he  appears  always 
to  select  a  man  that  is  "  game."  In  accounting  for  the 
apostle  to  Burma,  whose  praise  is  in  all  our  churches,  it 
is  suggestive  to  notice  that  he  had  a  slogan.  He  knew 
exactly  what  he  wanted.  There  is  power  in  a  banner 
with  a  device.  The  other  great  religious  movements  in 
history  have  each  had  a  watchword.  It  concentrates. 
Adoniram  Judson  set  out  distinctly  as  his  life-work 
to  raise  the  standard  of  the  Cross  in  a  citadel  of  oriental 
heathenism,  to  execute  a  translation  of  the  Scripture  into 
a  language  in  which  it  had  never  before  been  known, 
and  to  collect  a  church  of  one  hundred  members  among 
the  heathen.  His  heart  was  in  it.  He  put  his  strength 
to  it.  Does  any  one  ask  what  Christian  enterprise  was 
on  foot  a  hundred  years  ago?  Let  him  look  at  this  pro- 
gram. Judson  is  a  workman,  but  he  has  no  tools.  He  has 
a  message,  but  no  medium.  He  is  tongue-tied.  Tyndale, 
and  Wyclif,  and  Luther  translated  the  sacred  oracles 
into  their  mother  tongues,  but  Judson,  like  Eliot,  the 
apostle  to  the  Indians,  had  to  acquire  the  dialect  and 
idioms  of  a  barbarous  people,  and  to  learn  customs  that 
were  rooted  in  a  past  to  which  at  first  he  had  no  key. 

23 


24  THE   IMMORTAL   SEVEN 

Saint  Jerome,  who  owes  his  eminence  chiefly  to  his  trans- 
lation of  the  Scriptures,  was  believed  by  the  early  church 
to  have  been  raised  up  through  a  special  Providence  for 
this  purpose,  and  to  have  been  particularly  assisted 
from  above.  Each  translation  of  the  inspired  volume  has 
a  history,  a  spiritual  romance,  of  its  own.  What  heart 
is  unmoved  when  Judson,  whose  sincerity  at  every  point 
no  being  ever  doubted,  on  the  last  day  of  January  in 
the  year  1834,  kneels  with  rapturous  joy  and  with  stream- 
ing eyes  holds  up  toward  heaven  the  last  leaf  of  his 
translation  of  the  Burman  Bible,  thanking  Goodness  and 
Grace  that  his  life  has  been  lengthened  out  to  see  this 
day?  It  is  a  notable  event  in  the  history  of  missions. 
His  high  ideal  was  reached.  It  suggests,  only  it  is  more 
touching,  the  garden  at  Lausanne  where  Gibbon  experi- 
enced the  tender  emotions  he  so  affectingly  confesses, 
when,  between  eleven  and  twelve  at  night,  he  wrote  the 
last  line  of  the  last  page  of  his  great  history  and,  laying 
down  his  pen,  walked  out  to  recover  himself  in  the 
temperate  air;  and  Noah  Webster  when  he,  having 
arrived  at  the  last  word  of  his  dictionary,  was  seized  with 
a  tremor  that  made  it  difficult  to  proceed. 

The  Oracles  of  the  True  God 

The  recording  angel  could  at  length  seal  up  the  record 
of  a  new  translation  of  the  sacred  writings  into  an 
uncouth  language,  in  which  it  is  now  widely  diffused  and 
cheaply  obtained.  Doctor  Judson's  version,  which  com- 
petent judges  consider  one  of  the  best  renderings  ever 
made  into  an  Eastern  language,  still  holds  its  place  with 
little  change  as  the  standard  Bible  of  Burma.  It  is 
pondered  by  the  sable  Burman  in  his  hut,  and  worn  by 
the  fingers  of  tens  of  thousands  of  children  in  their  native 
Sunday-schools.  Its  well-thumbed  pages,  stained  by 
the  tears  of  the  afflicted,  retain  all  their  original  power, 


JUDSON    WITH    LAST   LEAF   OF    BURMAN    BIBLE 


WHAT    MANNER  OF   MANHOOD  25 

and  speak  to  the  heart  of  a  generation  born  long  after 
our  missionary  hero  accomplished  his  course.  Its  strength 
is  unwasted  as  if  God  had  brought  it  down  through  the 
years  in  his  hand.  It  is  distinguished  among  translations 
by  its  elegance,  and  the  missionaries  point  out  its  frequent 
felicities.  We  have"  looked  upon  the  earliest  copies  as 
the  ancients  did  upon  Aaron's  rod,  by  which  such  marvels 
were  wrought.  The  story  of  the  preservation  of  the 
translation  of  the  New  Testament  possesses  some  of  the 
elements  of  a  wonder.  It  was  taken  to  Ava  in  manu- 
script. When  Mr.  Judson  was  thrown  into  prison,  it  was 
secretly  sewed  up  by  his  wife,  who  was  driven  away  by 
the  jailers  from  the  prison  door,  and  she  gave  the  bundle 
which  she  made  the  form  of  a  cushion,  too  hard  and 
unsightly  to  tempt  the  cupidity  even  of  his  keepers,  and 
it  was  used  by  him  as  a  pillow.  At  the  close  of  seven 
months,  he  and  his  fellow  sufferers  were  rudely  thrust 
into  the  inner  prison,  and  the  old  pillow  fell  to  the  share 
of  one  of  the  keepers.  Finding  it  too  hard  for  his  use, 
he  threw  it  back,  and  it  came  once  more  into  its  owner's 
hands.  When  Judson  was  marched  from  one  prison  to 
another  over  the  blood-tracked  way,  it  was  lost.  Stripped 
of  the  mat  which  was  tied  about  it,  the  roll  of  hard 
cotton  containing  the  paper  was  again  flung  back  into 
prison.  Here  it  was  found  by  a  disciple,  Moung  Ing, 
who  took  it  home  as  a  memorial  of  his  teacher,  without 
suspecting  its  priceless  contents.  Several  months  after- 
ward, the  manuscript,  which  now  makes  a  part  of  the 
Burmese  Bible,  was  found  still  uninjured. 

Cotton  Mather  says  that  John  Eliot  wrote  out  the 
whole  translation  of  the  Indian  Bible  with  one  pen,  which, 
it  need  not  be  said,  became  a  priceless  relic.  In  the 
same  class  is  the  table,  preserved  in  the  room  of  the 
Bible  Society  in  New  York,  on  which  Judson  wrote  his 
translation.    If  Cambridge,  Massachusetts,  is  forever  cele- 


26  THE  IMMORTAL   SEVEN 

brated  as  the  place  where  Eliot's  Indian  Bible  was  printed, 
so  Moulmein  acquired  imperishable  distinction  as  the  loca- 
tion of  the  printing-presses  that  gave  this  translation  to  a 
pagan  people  at  a  time  when,  as  Judson  said,  every  stroke 
of  the  press  shot  a  ray  of  light  through  a  kingdom  of 
darkness.  He  had  the  honor  to  see  reality  surpass  his 
dream,  and  lived  to  witness  the  issue  of  more  than  five 
million  pages  from  the  mission  presses  in  a  single  year. 
What  forty-seven  translators  did  on  our  common  King 
James  Version,  working  under  the  auspices  of  a  king, 
with  every  facility  supplied,  Judson  performed  unaided. 
His  hope  was  that  the  idols  of  Burma  should  fall  before 
it  as  Dagon  fell  before  the  ark  of  God.  He  must  get  the 
names  of  the  animals  mentioned  in  the  Bible  right,  and 
the  flowers  and  plants,  and  this  only  suggests  the  dif- 
ficulty of  expressing  the  accountability  of  man  and  the 
character  of  God  and  the  thought  of  eternity,  where 
speech  was  without  words  to  communicate  the  ideas. 
For  among  the  natives,  who  were  incredibly  immoral, 
distinctions  which  we  take  for  granted  did  not  exist. 
They  are  totally  unable  to  see  that  a  lie  is  an  evil.  Despite 
all  difficulties,  his  translation  is  singularly  free  from 
obscurity,  and  stands  an  established  monument  to  his 
genius  and  patience  and  persistence ;  and  when  the  conse- 
quent harvest  began  to  ripen,  he  took  great  care  to 
bind  up  his  sheaves  and  gather  them  into  his  barn. 

We  bless  the  God  of  grace, 
Who  hath  his  word  revealed 

To  this  bewildered  race, 
So  long  in  darkness  held. 

A  Genius  for  Generalship 

The  epic  muse  has  found  her  choicest  themes  in  the 
struggles  of  the  good  and  brave  who  have  pursued  some 
noble  aim  against  adverse  fortune.    Judson,  whose  type 


WHAT    MANNER  OF   MANHOOD  2J 

of  mind  men  have  usually  honored  with  the  name  of 
genius,  beginning  his  work  among  the  benighted  idolaters 
of  the  East  exactly  where  the  Apostles  left  it,  only  with 
the  difficulties  of  the-  situation  very  much  increased,  for 
the  first  six  years  appeared  to  have  gone  upon  a  forlorn 
hope;  the  gloom  was  relieved  by  scarcely  a  gleam  of 
success.  To  reward  a  decade  of  inordinate  toil,  persecu- 
tion, and  imprisonment,  he  had  but  one  small  church  of 
eighteen.  It  fell  to  him  to  drive  the  entering-wedge  into 
the  very  toughest  gnarl  of  paganism.  The  haughty 
Burman,  with  a  heart  of  marble,  was  inclined,  like  the 
ancient  Greek,  to  cast  contempt  upon  the  Cross.  From 
the  first,  the  harvest  has  been  the  fruit  of  excessive  toil. 
So  thoroughly  has  the  selfish  principle  of  their  religion 
molded  the  popular  life  that  no  expression  equivalent 
to  "  I  thank  you  "  is  found  in  the  Burmese  language. 
The  Karens,  however,  without  a  priesthood,  without 
forms  of  worship,  tractable,,  kind,  and  trustful,  like  the 
Bereans,  received  the  word  with  all  readiness  of  mind, 
and  the  work  from  the  start  was  blessed  with  astonish- 
ing fruitage.  One-third  of  the  Karen  people  are  now 
Christians.  More  than  five  hundred  congregations  are 
practically  self-supporting.  They  tithe  the  produce  of 
their  land  for  the  support  of  their  pastors.  Ceasing  to  be 
a  child  race  and  becoming  a  mother  race,  they  send  mis- 
sionaries to  Siam  to  expand  a  work  whose  foundations 
were  laid  by  the  first  Mrs.  Judson.  The  work  among  the 
Karens,  of  whom  twenty  thousand  became  Christians 
in  twenty-five  years,  is  exactly  analogous  to  that  of  Titus 
Coan  in  the  Sandwich  Islands,  where  before  the  mission- 
aries landed  a  professed  idolater  had  dealt  the  death-blow 
to  idolatry,  and  where  for  the  first  time  in  history  a 
nation  had  flung  away  a  false  faith  without  a  new  one 
to  replace  it,  and  was  without  a  religion — where  five 
thousand  converts  were  received  into  church  relations  in 


28  THE   IMMORTAL   SEVEN 

one  year,  seventeen  hundred  in  one  day,  flying  as  a  cloud 
and  as  the  doves  to  their  windows,  and  where  Titus 
Coan  baptized  eleven  thousand,  nine  hundred  and  sixty 
persons.  During  five  years  seven  thousand,  five  hundred 
and  fifty-seven  persons  were  received  into  the  church  at 
Hilo,  three- fourths  of  the  whole  adult  population  of  the 
parish. 

There  were  at  Judson's  death  seven  thousand  Burmese 
and  Karen  Christians;  and  the  American  Baptist  Mis- 
sionary Union  that  sustained  him,  reckoning  from  the 
birthhour  of  our  foreign  missions,  and  so  including 
even  the  fruitless,  formative  years,  has  organized  a  church 
on  the  mission-fields  for  every  three  weeks,  and  bap- 
tized a  convert  for  every  three  hours  day  and  night. 
Judson  had  put  his  program  through.  "  The  only  time  I 
felt  that  I  wanted  to  be  orthodox  for  an  hour,"  said  the 
last  speaker  at  a  Unitarian  Convention,  "  was  the  hour  in 
which  I  noted  the  great  missionary  triumphs  of  ortho- 
doxy." The  land  in  which  Judson  founo^  a  dungeon,  with 
its  unnameable  horrors,  and  in  which  the  Baptists  have 
had  their  greatest  success,  has  now  become  itself  an 
evangelistic  power,  giving  in  one  year  $31,616.14,  rank- 
ing thus  third  in  the  list  of  donors  to  the  American 
Baptist  Union,  only  Massachusetts  and  New  York  having 
precedence.  Romance  is  entirely  outdone  in  its  highest 
effort  by  that  theater  for  men  and  angels,  which  filled 
heaven  and  earth  with  praise,  when  in  a  period  of  twelve 
years  a  church  of  eight  grew  to  be  a  church  of  twelve 
thousand,  when  two  thousand,  two  hundred  and  twenty- 
two  persons  were  baptized  in  one  day,  and  in  two  days 
following  the  number  was  made  up  to  thirty-six  hundred, 
and  before  the  end  of  the  year  to  ten  thousand,  becoming 
thus  the  largest  single  church  in  the  world,  doing  a  work 
that  surpasses  in  magnitude  any  other  ever  known  in 
Christian  history.     The  Telugu  mission,  rooted  in  Jud- 


WHAT    MANNER   OF    MANHOOD  20, 

son's  work,  experienced  the  greatest  local  revival  since 
our  Lord's  ascension,  when  ten  thousand  converts  were 
made  in  one  year.  One  in  a  hundred  of  the  inhabitants 
of  India  is  now  a  believer  in  Christ.  Christians  have 
grown  in  ten  years  by  nearly  a  million. 

Consistency  and  Cumulative  Power 

The  progression  is  not  arithmetical,  but  geometrical; 
not  along  the  slow  lines  of  addition,  but  by  the  rapid 
process  of  multiplication.  In  Bombay,  where  two  of  the 
favored  band  of  brethren,  Hall  and  Nott,  whom  God  has 
most  abundantly  honored,  made  the  beginning,  seventy 
different  languages  may  be  heard  in  the  streets  and 
markets.  During  fifty  years  in  India  alone,  more  than 
six  hundred  saintly  men  and  women  have  fallen  asleep 
and  found  a  missionary's  grave.  Who  can  tell  how  many 
souls  have  by  reason  of  them  been  added  to  the  church 
of  the  redeemed  in  heaven?  India  is  now  a  starry 
firmament  sparkling  with  missionary  stations.  There 
are  now  eighty-four  foreign  missionary  organizations  at 
work  in  that  country,  and  the  gospel  runneth  very  swiftly. 
If  you  say  that  Judson  has  not  done  all  this,  you  must 
admit  that  with  a  fine  sagacity  and  devotion  he  led  the 
way.  He  opened  the  door,  and  others  have  passed 
through.  Gladstone  says  that  the  first  fifty  years  of  the 
century,  which  would  cover  the  formative  period  of  Jud- 
son's  work  exactly,  marked  more  progress  than  the  pre- 
vious five  thousand.  What  a  bundle  of  history  such  a  life 
binds  up,  and  what  a  power  he  is  shown  to  have  been! 

A  Heroic  Plan 

The  success  of  Judson  and  his  associates,  their  con- 
tributions to  our  religious  history,  and  their  claim  upon 
the  remembrance  of  mankind,  spring  from  one  line  of 
deliberate  action  more  than   from  any  other  cause  or 


30  THE   IMMORTAL   SEVEN 

condition  whatsoever.  Their  imperishable  fame,  their  in- 
fluence and  power  come  from  that  with  which  they  iden- 
tified themselves.  What  would  Paul  be  without  his 
identification  with  the  Christian  gospel?  What  would 
Columbus  be  without  his  relations  to  a  new  continent? 
What  is  Lincoln  except  for  identification  with  the  eman- 
cipation and  a  reunited  nation?  What  would  Wendell 
Phillips,  or  William  Lloyd  Garrison,  or  Elizabeth  Fry,  or 
Howard  be  except  for  what  they  identified  themselves 
with?  The  Sacred  Seven  espoused  missions,  and  gave 
themselves  to  the  alliance  absolutely,  with  all  abandon. 
They  glorified  the  cause,  and  it  in  turn  was  the  making  of 
them.  They  firmly  established  the  work,  and  it  became 
their  pedestal,  and  upon  it  they  stand  conspicuous,  as  long 
as  ships  shall  sail  the  sea.  Judson  inherited  some  money, 
but  turned  it  over  undiminished  to  the  mission  board. 
He  escaped  the  greed  of  wealth  and  the  mania  for  owning 
things.  When  times  were  hard  he  asked  to  have  his 
stipend  reduced.  While  with  many  the  business  instinct 
is  uppermost,  he  merged  himself  in  the  cause.  He  made 
religion  the  great  concern  of  his  life.  He  came  to  be 
known  as  the  Jesus-man.  He  declined  the  title  of  Doctor 
of  Divinity,  although  it  always  adhered  to  him,  preferring 
that  of  missionary.  By  this  designation  he  always  alludes 
to  himself.  His  home  was  "  the  mission."  While  he  was 
without  a  single  convert,  a  little  inattention  to  his  per- 
sonal appearance  would  appear  excusable;  but  no,  any 
opinion  formed  of  him  was  an  estimate  of  a  missionary. 
His  early  habits  of  study  were  kept  up  with  unabated 
diligence.  He  magnified  his  office.  It  is  suggestive  that 
the  chief  message  left  him  by  his  dying  wife  was  that  it 
should  not  be  said  of  him,  as  Mr.  Carey  said  of  his  son, 
Felix,  that  he  had  "  driveled  into  an  ambassador,"  mean- 
ing to  say  that  he  was  once  a  great  person  as  a  missionary, 
but  he  had  accepted  a  comparatively  insignificant  office. 


WHAT   MANNER  OF  MANHOOD  3 1 

The  Highest  and  the  Most  Human  Too 

He  was  always,  though  perhaps  needlessly,  on  his 
guard  against  secularizing  the  mission.  In  the  ablest, 
finest  appreciation  of  him  probably  ever  given,  the  glow- 
ing orator  appears  to  tremble  at  the  apparition  of  the 
ruin  and  loss  that  would  have  been  sustained  if  a  man 
of  such  decided  ability,  indomitable  resolution,  so  full  of 
soul  and  sensibility,  had  gone  off  on  a  tangent  at  any 
point.  His  name  is  not  alone.  He  was  a  center  of  a 
family  group  to  which  no  parallel  can  be  found  in  ancient 
or  in  modern  history.  Ann,  Sarah,  and  Emily  shared  in 
his  labors,  rose  to  his  height,  and  deserve  to  shine  beside 
him.  A  reversal,  or  any  change  whatever  in  the  order, 
would  have  made  the  whole  result  impossible.  No  one 
of  the  three  could  possibly  have  taken  the  place  or  have 
done  the  work  of  either  of  the  others.  He  is  inexpressibly 
indebted  to  each  of  them.  To  the  first  he  owed  his  life 
when  the  foundations  of  his  monumental  work  were 
hardly  laid.  Another  surpassed  him  in  a  fine  discrimina- 
tion of  words,  sympathized  with  him  in  his  great  work  of 
translation,  helped  him  turn  his  problematical  beginnings 
into  phenomenal  growth,  and  called  him  "  a  complete 
assemblage  of  all  that  a  woman  could  wish  to  love  and 
honor."  The  other  had  more  than  talent,  even  genius. 
She  had  a  fine  appreciation  of  him,  ranking  him  as  a 
"  lion  "  and  a  "  wonder."  With  grace,  elegance,  exquisite 
raciness,  and  unapproachable  nicety  of  language,  she 
gives  us  an  estimate  of  him,  a  vivid  word-picture  of  the 
closing  scene,  and  a  clear  reflection  of  his  habits,  spirit, 
and  style  of  oratory,  which  illumine  the  brightest  pages  of 
any  biography  of  him,  and  cause  him  to  be  better  known 
than  any  of  his  fellow  laborers,  though  some  of  them 
had  talents  of  the  first  order  as  we  shall  see,  and  were 
trusted,  revered,  and  beloved. 


32  THE  IMMORTAL   SEVEN 

The  wife  of  his  youth  was  called,  "  The  woman  of 
the  century."  She  was  ever  his  good  genius.  No  other 
wife  in  missionary  service  ever  witnessed  and  passed 
through  such  scenes  of  suffering  or  made  such  efforts, 
crowned  at  last  with  success,  to  effect  freedom.  She  was 
once  a  prisoner  alone  in  her  own  home,  guarded  by  ten 
ruffianly  men.  She  showed  consummate  tact  and  in- 
ventiveness, unflinching  courage,  and  heroic  resolution  in 
caring  for  her  husband,  in  finding  the  means  to  visit  him 
and  prepare  food  for  him,  and  in  her  efforts  for  his 
liberation  from  prison  that  would  never  have  occurred  to 
a  man.  She  seemed  wholly  unaware  that  she  was  play- 
ing the  heroine.  When  her  heart  is  involved,  a  woman 
has  by  native  endowment  an  ingenuity  which  men  do  not 
possess.  Affection  gives  her  second  sight.  "  Mother- 
wit  "  indicates  the  same  thing,  as  it  implies  that  her  love 
of  her  dependent  young  gives  discernment  and  wisdom 
in  action. 

The  Flower  of  New  England  Womanhood 

This  queenly  soul  exhibits  a  character,  which  in  some 
of  its  elements  is  not  equaled  in  female  biography.  His- 
tory has  not  recorded,  poetry  itself  has  seldom  portrayed, 
such  capacity  for  exertion  and  endurance,  and  such  fer- 
tility of  resources  for  the  accomplishment  of  a  purpose. 
With  a  life  in  the  balance,  her  instincts  were  amazing 
and  infallible.  Let  us  be  thankful  that  to  her  was  given 
the  joy  of  carrying  to  her  husband  the  tidings  of  his 
liberty  on  the  approach  of  the  English  army.  She 
was  beautiful,  very  fond  of  society,  and  famed  for 
her  extreme  gaiety,  vivacity,  and  sprightliness  in  conver- 
sation, and  for  her  social  sparkle.  The  acknowledged 
ornament  of  every  circle  in  which  she  moved,  a  martyr 
to  her  sufferings  and  superhuman  efforts  to  save  her 
husband  from  the  executioner,  surrounded  only  by  the 


WHAT   MANNER  OF   MANHOOD  33 

dark-browed,  dark-minded  children  of  the  sun — her  hus- 
band having  been  for  some  time  absent  on  a  journey — 
alone  in  her  mortal  illness,  in  her  early  deajth  and 
lamented  burial,  she  was  the  first  of  all  the  six  hundred 
missionaries  that  are  now  sleeping  in  soil  of  India  to  go 
down  to  her  windowless  home.  There  is  a  story  of  a 
German  merchant,  so  wealthy  that  he  paved  his  court- 
yard with  silver  dollars ;  but  here  is  the  pathway  of  a  life 
paved  with  good  deeds,  leading  up  to  that  city  whose 
streets  are  "  pure  gold,  like  unto  clear  glass."  Doctor 
Wayland  said,  "  I  do  not  remember  ever  to  have  met 
a  more  remarkable  woman."  "  She  appears  on  the  page 
of  missionary  history  as  an  illuminated  initial  letter." 
Married  at  twenty-three,  to  her  belongs  the  praise  of 
being  the  first  woman  from  this  country  who  made  up 
her  mind,  for  Christ's  sake,  to  exchange  her  friends 
and  her  country  for  the  unmingled  abominations  of 
the  heathen.  With  no  example  to  guide  and  allure 
her,  in  a  preeminent  demonstration  of  missionary  feel- 
ing, she  rose  superior  to  the  prevailing  spirit  of  the  time, 
and,  like  a  star  in  the  moral  firmament,  sheds  a  distinct 
radiance  on  the  path  of  all  succeeding  generations  of  mis- 
sionaries. "  Nor  do  I  yet  know  that  I  shall  have  a  single 
lady  companion,  but  God  is  my  witness  that  I  have  not 
dared  to  decline  the  offer  that  has  been  made  me."  With 
noble  energy  and  intrepidity,  unsurpassed  in  all  missionary 
annals,  the  renowned  heroine  of  Ava  marked  out  a  path- 
way for  herself  absolutely  untrodden,  shedding  upon  it 
imperishable  luster,  and  introduced  to  the  world  a  marked 
feature  in  the  new  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  which  is  the 
Apostolate  of  Woman. 

The  cost  of  self -exile  to  a  woman,  what  it  means  to 

her  to  be  like  a  person  buried  alive  among  them  who  are 

afar  off,  in  an  outlandish  country,  where  darkness  covers 

the  land  and  gross  darkness  the  people,  may  be  inferred 

c 


34  THE  IMMORTAL   SEVEN 

from  the  flat  refusal  of  Carey's  wife  to  go  with  him  to 
India  so  that  he  and  his  oldest  son,  Felix,  embarked  on 
the  "  Oxford  "  without  her.  His  letters  to  her  and  to  his 
father  revealed  the  tenderness  of  his  love  for  her  and 
the  severity  of  the  struggle  between  duty  and  affection. 
During  the  ship's  enforced  delay,  Carey's  wife  recon- 
sidered her  refusal  and  consented  to  go  with  him  on  con- 
dition that  her  sister  should  accompany  her.  This  does 
not  sound  much  like  Mrs.  Judson.  Luther  Rice  finished 
his  career  of  great  usefulness  and  devotion  unmarried. 
He  was  not  without  "  the  object  of  his  affections,  and 
there  was  a  strong  attachment,  mutually  indulged."  He 
hoped  she  (Miss  Eaton)  might  be  willing  to  accompany 
him  on  the  mission,  but  a  distinct  negative  was  given  to 
the  question,  thus  releasing  him  from  all  engagements 
with  her,  provided  he  should  determine  to  go.  "After 
many  painful  thoughts  "  he  forsook  all  and,  relinquish- 
ing an  attachment  of  long  and  intimate  standing,  made 
the  voyage  to  India. 

Such  a  consistency  was  stamped  upon  Ann  Judson's  life 
that  we  cannot  point  to  an  act  in  her  career  with  the  wish 
that  it  had  been  otherwise.  Leaving  her  country  and  her 
father's  house  with  a  heroism  and  fidelity  unparalleled  in 
the  annals  of  missions,  she  maintained  through  years  of 
monotonous,  disheartening  toil,  her  position  as  Doctor 
Judson's  only  companion  as  he  opened  his  work  in  the 
Burman  Empire.  William  Carey  recorded  his  impression 
that  the  Judsons  looked  too  delicate  for  missionary  work, 
and  yet  Judson  toiled  among  these  earthliest  and  grossest 
types  of  humanity  for  thirty-seven  years.  Seeing  the 
missionaries  had  such  wives,  we  marvel  less  at  the 
solidity  of  their  work.  Mrs.  Judson  was  quicker  than 
her  husband  in  learning  to  speak  Burmese  with  fluency, 
though  it  is  an  extremely  difficult  language,  and  the  dif- 
ficulties were  then  increased  by  the  non-existence  of  any 


WHAT   MANNER  OF   MANHOOD  35 

such  thing  as  dictionary  or  grammar.  Her  catechism  was 
for  many  long  years  taught  to  every  child  in  the  Burman 
mission  schools.  The  first  Christian  book  ever  printed  in 
Siamese,  a  catechism,  the  first  step  ever  taken  toward 
the  evangelization  of  that  oriental  Eden,  was  prepared 
by  her.  It  remained  for  a  generation  almost  the  only 
contribution  to  the  enlightenment  of  a  nation  of  dark, 
debased  idolaters,  contentedly  dwelling  in  the  deep  night- 
shade of  heathenism.  She  wreathed  with  unfading  laurels 
woman's  missionary  work,  so  honorable  to  her  sex  and 
her  country.  It  attracts  an  increasing  company,  now 
enrolling  one-third  of  the  entire  force  in  the  foreign  field, 
and  must  now  go  on  adding  circles,  widening  until  they 
shall  teach  no  more,  saying,  "  Know  the  Lord."  She 
was  the  first  returned  woman  missionary  that  ever  visited 
this  country.  Her  little  missionary  tour  in  the  East  and 
South,  pitifully  restricted  by  broken  health,  developed 
nothing  to  detract  from  her  illustrious  precedence. 

Rain  as  Well  as  Sun 

Rangoon  in  her  day  was  a  mere  collection  of  wooden 
shacks  and  pagodas.  Judson's  first  convert,  Moung  Nau, 
became  an  invaluable  assistant  at  the  zayat.  This  was 
a  bamboo  shed,  with  thatched  roof,  which  Judson  caused 
to  be  erected  under  the  shadow  of  one  of  the  great 
pagodas,  which  had  been  newly  gilded,  and  was  con- 
sidered the  most  sacred  in  the  whole  country,  as  it  con- 
tained six  or  eight  of  the  hairs  of  Gautama;  there  he 
could  meet  daily,  like  Saint  Paul,  with  all  those  who 
came  unto  him.  Leaves  twenty  inches  long  and  a  foot 
in  breadth,  from  the  teak  tree,  the  most  valuable  of  all 
known  timbers,  which  was  once  the  chief  export  of  both 
Rangoon  and  Moulmein,  were  used  by  the  natives  for 
plates,  for  wrapping  up  parcels,  and  for  thatching  such 
a  hut.     One  day  the  viceroy  of  Rangoon,  seated  on  a 


36  THE   IMMORTAL   SEVEN 

huge  elephant  and  attended  by  a  numerous  retinue, 
passed  this  provisional  chapel.  He  said  nothing,  but 
eyed  very  narrowly  the  missionary  and  the  little  band 
of  natives  with  whom  he  was  conversing.  Soon  were 
heard  the  first  mutterings  of  the  coming  storm,  and  the 
hopeful  beginnings  began  to  be  darkened  by  gloomy  fore- 
bodings. As  hostility  showed  itself,  the  Judsons  asso- 
ciated it  with  the  appearance  of  the  elephant  at  this 
shelter  by  the  roadside. 

The  number  and  immense  size  of  the  elephants,  Mrs. 
Judson  says,  surpassed  anything  she  had  ever  seen  or 
imagined.  The  white  elephant  appeared  caparisoned  with 
silk  and  velvet  and  blazing  with  jewels.  The  ordinary 
Asiatic  elephant,  the  largest  and  heaviest  of  terrestrial 
animals,  whose  strength  is  almost  unlimited,  under  the 
dull  heat  of  the  tropical  sun  is  the  main  worker  in  the 
teak  forests  of  Burma.  He  drags  the  felled  trees  to  the 
river.  At  the  mills  he  does  the  packing  and  stacking. 
An  elephant  will  grip  the  plank  firmly,  get  it  to  balance, 
then  with  remarkable  dexterity  and  astonishing  power 
raise  the  great  timber  horizontally  and  push  it  into  posi- 
tion. The  beasts  file  along  in  undisturbed  succession,  and 
do  an  indispensable  work  with  a  minimum  of  direction. 

The  First  Grave  in  American  Foreign  Missions 

To  Harriet  Newell,  who  went  out  on  the  "  Caravan  " 
with  the  Judsons,  belongs  the  never- failing  distinction 
of  laying  her  life  first  on  the  altar  of  sacrifice  in  the  cause 
of  foreign  missions.  She  was  no  weakling,  but  with 
courage  showed  that  she  had  fine  traits  of  action  and 
aggressiveness.  She  was  extremely  winning,  idolized  by 
all  who  knew  her,  and  made  friends  everywhere  to  an  un- 
exampled degree.  Mothers  named  their  daughters  after 
her.  Do  you  know  that  elusive  quality  which  makes  a 
person  popular?    It  is  centered,  of  course,  in  personality; 


I 


c      UC«  t.         « 


WHAT    MANNER  OF   MANHOOD  37 

it  produces  affection;  it  insures  confidence;  it  stands  for 
a  form  of  ability.  It  is  what  we  call  charm  in  a  young 
lady.  Harriet  Newell  had  it  to  a  superlative  degree. 
It  is  the  heart  that  governs  the  world ;  it  is  the  feelings 
that  perform  the  real  miracles  of  history.  The  masses 
of  men  are  influenced  by  what  appeals  to  their  sympathies. 
Duty,  no  less  than  affection,  bade  her  go  forward.  Noth- 
ing attracts  like  a  struggle.  This  is  seen  in  athletics.  The 
drama  too  makes  a  quick  recognition  of  this  fact  of 
human  life.  No  struggle,  no  drama,  is  the  unbroken  law. 
The  contest  is  usually  with  others,  but  in  poor  Harriet's 
case  it  was  in  her  own  soul,  between  her  natural  love  of 
life  on  the  one  hand,  and  her  heart  and  conscience  and 
sense  of  duty  on  the  other.  The  story  of  her  life  takes 
hold  of  the  public  mind  for  exactly  the  same  reason 
that  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe's  "Uncle  Tom's  Cabin" 
does.  It  has  in  it  many,  and  indeed  most,  of  the  same 
elements.  Possessing  immortal  pathos,  it  reaches  down 
into  the  vitals  with  a  deathlike  grip.  You  cannot  escape 
it.  There  are  all  of  the  lights  and  shadows  of  a  great 
drama.  Brutality  and  love,  greed  that  ordered  her  out  of 
India,  the  devotion  of  woman,  self-sacrifice,  generosity, 
the  power  of  the  world  to  come,  life  and  death — the 
whole  range  of  the  human  passions  is  represented  in 
the  book.  You  see  life  in  many  phases,  and  it  is  all 
consistent.  Each  one  acts  his  part.  All  the  things  happen 
naturally  and  in  such  quick  succession  that  there  is  no 
waiting.  The  moving  force  of  love,  the  most  common- 
place of  all  the  emotions,  a  vein  that  dramatists  always 
work  to  its  limit,  implied  by  the  presence  of  the  beau- 
tiful young  women  from  Bradford,  unquestionably  added 
to  the  power  of  the  ordination  to  capture  and  enchain 
the  audience.  A  lady,  herself  a  consecrated  missionary, 
claims  that  even  the  nicety,  shown  in  the  portrait  at 
Bradford  and  in  the  frontispiece  to  her  memoirs,  in  the 


38  THE  IMMORTAL  SEVEN 

arrangement  of  Mrs.  Newell's  hair  and  the  obvious  pains- 
taking with  a  curl  on  either  side  of  her  handsome  fore- 
head, contribute  touch  and  power,  for  while  no  one 
doubts  her  piety,  this  shows  her  still  a  woman.  To  be 
"  like  as  we  are,"  and  then  to  be  consecrated,  somehow 
appeals  to  hearts  that  are  first  of  all  human. 

A  Princess  in  Missions 

She  writes  to  her  mother  after  her  marriage  that  she  is 
perfectly  content,  and  that  she  wants  her  mother  to 
remember  this  whether  she  lives  or  dies.  Her  mother 
had  consented  to  her  going,  at  eighteen,  for  the  reason 
that  the  girl  felt  it  to  be  her  duty  to  go.  She  made  it 
a  matter  of  conscience,  and  the  mother,  notwithstand- 
ing her  love  for  her  daughter,  did  not  feel  at  liberty 
to  put  herself  between  her  child  and  the  sense  of  duty. 
The  mother  has  never  had  her  day  in  court.  Her  side 
of  the  case  has  not  been  heard.  She  made  a  sacri- 
fice at  the  parting  with  her  daughter  almost  equally  with 
the  young  woman  herself.  The  mother  and  daughter 
went  through  the  heart-struggle  together,  each  suffering 
as  much  as  the  other,  and  each  the  more  on  account  of 
the  other's  suffering.  The  mother  would  have  died  at  the 
last  if  she  could  have  saved  young  Harriet. 

Nearer  the  Sunset 

In  a  letter  which  at  this  distance  has  lost  none  of  its 
pathos,  for  it  is  charged  with  the  undying  fervor  of  a 
heartfelt  sorrow,  the  husband  writes  to  her  mother  that 
Harriet,  a  victim  to  the  incidental  hardships  of  the  voy- 
age, becoming  the  first  American  martyr  for  foreign 
missions,  had  died  at  the  Isle  of  France,  often  called  by 
its  old  Dutch  name,  Mauritius.  After  they  had  been 
driven  out  from  India,  upon  the  great  wide  sea  this 
island  rose  to  their  view,  like  that  hillock  in  a  wider 


WHAT    MANNER  OF   MANHOOD  39 

waste  of  waters  where  the  wandering  dove  of  Noah 
rested  the  sole  of  her  foot  and  plucked  the  leaf  of 
olive.  It  was  a  part  of  the  cant  of  the  day  to  sneer  at 
sacrifice,  but  here  it  was  unparalleled,  and  it  came  in  a 
form  that  silenced  all  cavil  and  pleaded  her  cause  more 
eloquently  than  any  language. 

The  Good  Night 

When  this  proto-martyr  found  at  nineteen  that  for  her 
the  end  had  come,  the  sentence  from  her  dying  lips  that 
thrilled  through  the  land  was  that,  although  she  was 
prevented  from  building  the  temple,  like  David  she  had  it 
in  her  heart  to  do  it.  It  was  an  arrow  that  reached 
many  in  this  country  and  could  not  be  dislodged;  one 
woman  after  another  felt  within  herself,  "  I  cannot  say 
that,  no  thought  or  plan  for  the  temple  has  been  in  my 
heart."  Many  a  missionary  is  yet  to  be  made  by  the 
moving  recital;  it  still  pleads  with  irresistible  eloquence 
the  momentous  interests  for  which  she  left  her  country 
and  her  father's  house.  She  had  qualities  and  an  excel- 
lence above  the  reach  of  mere  human  nature.  In  her 
memoirs,  almost  entirely  written  by  herself,  amounting 
to  a  girl's  autobiography,  she  was  drawing  from  her 
own  life,  coloring  from  her  own  heart.  They  reveal  her 
life  at  sea;  her  peculiar  affection  for  her  widowed 
mother  in  Haverhill ;  her  glee  at  the  first  sight  of  India 
and  of  the  natives,  of  the  pilot  in  his  calico  trousers  and 
white  cotton  short  gown,  who  came  on  board  the  "  Cara- 
van," to  take  the  vessel  into  port ;  her  bright  expectations 
— she  was  in  the  very  prime  and  bloom  of  her  youth; 
her  disappointment,  her  sufferings,  her  death. 

Memory  Comforting  Sorrow 

Doctor  Woods,  of  Andover,  obtained  the  letters  written 
by  her  and  published  them,   with  some  extracts   from 


40  THE    IMMORTAL    SEVEN 

her  diary  and  other  sources,  and  it  became  in  those 
days,  though  not  a  large  volume,  the  greatest  dynamic 
in  early  missions.  It  is  another  case  of  the  broken 
alabaster  box,  for  the  story  of  her  life  became  a  potent 
influence  in  the  modern  missionary  era.  It  had  the  widest 
circulation,  single  colporters  disposing  of  more  than  a 
thousand  volumes.  If  religion  appears  lovely  when  seen 
in  its  principles,  how  much  more  so  when  seen  in  the 
conduct  of  talented,  devoted,  excellent  men  and  women. 
In  no  way  is  a  person  so  likely  to  be  truly  known  as  in 
his  familiar  letters;  for  these  often  express  the  nature 
and  spirit  much  more  effectually  than  the  best  biog- 
raphy. Harriet  Newell  and  all  the  Judsons  were  medal- 
ists in  letter-writing.  The  friendly  craft  was  in  their 
day  much  more  in  vogue  than  at  present.  They  were 
not  writing  for  the  public  eye,  and  a  person  who  is  not 
prepared  to  unlock  his  heart  can  never  write  a  great 
letter.  Without  the  letters  we  should  not  know  the  real 
Judson,  and  Harriet  Newell  would  be  swept  from  the 
firmament,  which  would  be  like  the  loss  of  a  star.  Dr. 
William  Goodell  says  that  he  was  profoundly  stirred  by 
her  life.  He  saw  her  here  at  Salem  and,  remembering 
her,  says,  "  I  could  not  restrain  my  tears  while  look- 
ing on  her  likeness."  Her  memoirs  dropped  into  a 
woman's  hands  in  Smyrna,  in  central  New  York,  where 
was  neither  church,  minister,  nor  Sabbath-school,  and 
where  had  never  been  a  revival  of  religion,  but  the  sacred 
fire  kindled  in  this  woman's  heart  spread  through  her 
home  and  the  town  and  the  region,  and  two  new  churches 
came  out  of  it,  and  some  new  religious  voices  that  were 
presently  "  heard  round  the  world." 

In  any  personal  library,  note  the  scantiness  of  biog- 
raphies of  women  up  to  the  Judsons  and  Harriet  Newell. 
The  shelves  are  loaded  with  Napoleon,  Johnson,  White- 
field,  Edwards,  Washington,  and  Franklin,  who  in  his 


A   VILLAGE   IN   BURMA 


A    SCHOOLHOUSE   IN    BURMA 


WHAT   MANNER  OF   MANHOOD  41 

writings  always  appears  so  much  pleased  with  himself, 
but  up  to  the  year  whose  centenary  we  are  now  cele- 
brating how  few,  comparatively,  are  the  biographies  of 
women.  These  first  missionaries  not  only  opened  a  new 
sphere  of  activity  and  usefulness  and  distinction,  but 
revealed  a  work  that  is  appropriate  exclusively  for  women. 
They  can  best  enter  into  sympathetic  relations  with  those 
in  lowest  degradation.  With  the  advent  of  the  Judsons 
and  Newells  the  old  monkish  idea  of  religious  methods 
was  gone.  One  branch  of  the  Christian  church  teaches 
the  celibacy  of  the  clergy  for  the  reason,  as  is  stated  in 
their  literature,  that  a  mission  requires  it.  Not  with 
such  conditions  as  existed  in  India;  not  where  there  is 
social  female  inferiority;  not  where  evils  exist  that  must 
be  slain  ingloriously  like  Abimelech  and  Pyrrhus  by 
the  hands  of  women.  The  very  decided  advance  of  mis- 
sionary enterprise  which  is  to  be  attributed  to  the  newer 
activity  of  woman  is  an  enlargement  of  the  beginnings 
which  were  witnessed  in  the  sailing  of  the  "  Caravan." 


Ill 


DIVERSITIES  OF  GIFTS 


> 


Ill 

DIVERSITIES  OF  GIFTS 

The  Orator  of  the  Group ..«,,.,    ».    .    .    .     , 

IT  was  the  design  of  the  missionary  board  to  send  out 
but  four  men.  To  attempt  to  do  more,  in  the  opinion 
of  Doctor  Spring,  would  stagger  the  churches  and  make 
the  project  seem  rash  and  impracticable.  When  Luther 
Rice  asked  to  be  added  to  the  list,  he  was  accepted  only 
.eleven  days  before  the  ordination  on  condition  that,  on 
account  of  the  scant  provision  of  money  at  the  time,  he 
would  occasion  no  additional  expense,  but  would  provide 
for  his  own  outfit  and  raise  the  money  for  his  passage. 
With  this  hard  condition  he  cheerfully  complied,  and 
immediately  set  out  on  horseback,  and  traveled  day  and 
night  in  the  depth  of  winter  to  assemble  the  wherewithal. 
It  was  owing  entirely  to  an  intenseness  of  feeling  which 
could  neither  be  restrained  by  himself  nor  resisted  by  the 
Prudential  Committee,  that  he  was  enabled  to  force  his 
way  through  the  almost  insuperable  difficulties  of  the  case 
so  as  to  go  to  India  at  that  time.  "  I  had  to  provide 
by  begging  the  funds  for  my  outfit,  passage,  etc.,  and  all^ 
this -in  the  space  of  nine  days,  for  two  of  the  eleven  ^ 
passed  before  I  learned  that  the  day  for  ordination  had\ 
been  fixed  upon.  Three  more  were  consumed  in  agonizing 
and  successful,  successful  only  because  agonizing,  efforts 
with  the  Prudential  Committee,  leaving  only  six  days  to 
provide  the  necessary  funds.  By  the  signal  aid  of  Provi- 
dence, this  was  effected."  He  refers  to  the  ordination 
at  Salem  as  most  solemn  and  interesting,  although  he 
was   worn  down  with   fatigue  and   agitation   of  mind. 

45 


46  THE   IMMORTAL   SEVEN 

"  Perhaps  no  American  has  done  more  for  the  great  mis- 
sionary enterprise.  It  is  thought  the  first  American 
Foreign  Mission,  on  which  he  went  to  India,  associated 
with  Judson  and  others,"  affirms  the  inscription  on  his 
marble  tombstone,  "  originated  with  him."  When  opposi- 
tion began  to  rear  its  brazen  front  and  the  missionaries 
were  forced  to  retire  from  India  to  the  Isle  of  France,  as 
Rice  found  himself  one-third  of  the  way  to  the  United 
States,  and  as  he  and  Judson  had  become  Baptists  and 
no  support  was  either  organized  or  in  sight,  it  was  judged 
best  by  them  that  Rice  should  return  to  this  country  to 
rally  the  forces  in  this  denomination.  He  was  received 
with  great  affection.  Above  the  ordinary  height,  robust, 
perfectly  erect,  of  commanding  presence,  making  a  fine 
appearance  in  the  pulpit,  and  having  also  the  gift  and 
temperament  of  a  public  speaker  with  talents  of  the  very 
first  order,  sprightliness,  pathos,  and  a  vigorous,  natural 
eloquence,  always  exceedingly  felicitous  and  impressive, 
sometimes  overpowering,  he  was  Often  called  the  orator, 
and  as  his  pulpit  efforts  were  highly  attractive,  he  was 
ranked  as  one  of  the  most  interesting  and  effective  speak- 
ers in  the  land. 

Eloquence  to  the  Purpose 

As  the  churches  were  quietly  slumbering  over  the 
Saviour's  last  command,  he  was  kept  "  flying  through  " 
every  part  of  the  country  like  an  angel  with  a  message  of 
life  and  light.  The  use  of  wit  is  said  to  have  been  the 
only  defect  in  his  character.  He  was  led  to  its  use  at 
times  by  the  natural  vivacity  of  his  nature,  but  the  general 
feeling  of  the  day  was  against  its  exercise,  and  he  strove 
to  keep  it  in  check,  although  he  still  delighted  to  look  at 
the  bright  side  of  things.  He  had  excellent  taste  in 
music,  had  taught  its  art,  possessed  a  sociable  disposition, 
and  was  a  fine  conversationalist.    On  one  of  his  journeys 


DIVERSITIES   OF   GIFTS  47 

in  the  interests  of  the  foreign  mission  he  visited  Lynn 
and  found  three  or  four  Baptist  families.  They  had  no 
public  meetings,  and  he  inquired  if  it  was  not  their 
duty  to  establish  weekly  or  semi-monthly  lectures  by 
Baptist  ministers,  offering,  if  they  would  open  their  doors 
for  this  purpose,  to  engage  the  clergy  of  Boston  and  other 
places  to  supply  them.  Such  lectures  were  regularly 
maintained  for  two  years,  part  of  the  time  once  a 
week,  and  this  beginning  grew,  through  his  initiative, 
into  a  large  and  prosperous  church  which  has  now  ex- 
panded into  several  thrifty  and  beneficent  Christian  com- 
munities. But  his  greatest  work  was  in  unifying  the 
scattered  Baptist  churches,  and  in  developing  an  entirely 
new  denominational  consciousness.  "  No  Baptist,"  his 
epitaph  states,  "  has  done  more  for  the  cause  Of  educa- 
tion. He  founded  the  Columbian  College  in  the  District 
of  Columbia."  To  this  inscription  could  be  added,  "  The 
zeal  of  thine  house  hath  eaten  me  up."  When  students 
for  the  ministry  besieged  him  for  admission  to  the 
Columbian  College  and  for  support,  he  had  no  heart 
to  deny  them,  and  so  undertook  obligations,  wholly 
benevolent,  that  were  beyond  his  power  to  bear,  with  the 
result  of  irreparable  injury  to  himself  and  to  the  college, 
which,  as  his  epitaph  recites,  "  failed  to  fulfil  the  high 
purpose  of  the  founder."  On  a  salary  of  four  hundred 
dollars  a  year  he  gave  everything  to  the  college,  in- 
cluding an  inheritance.  In  the  year  1826,  without  a  penny 
in  the  world,  supported  by  his  friends,  clad  ofttimes  in 
tattered  garments,  to  a  stranger  he  would  appear  to 
resemble  more  a  poor  beggar  than  a  great  and  good  man. 
He  was  one  of  those  who  wrought  righteousness,  clothed 
in  sheepskins  and  goatskins,  being  destitute,  of  whom  the 
world  was  not  worthy.  We  cannot  easily  express  the 
importance  of  his  labor  in  its  twofold  relations,  to  the 
work  abroad  and  to  the  churches  at  home. 


48  THE   IMMORTAL   SEVEN 

Sacred  to  Memory 

I  have  admired  that  man  extravagantly.  I  have  prom- 
ised myself  a  visit  to  his  lonely  grave.  It  is  in  a  spot 
seldom  trodden  by  the  foot  of  man.  The  little  Baptist 
church  which  once  stood  near  it  has  been  destroyed 
by  fire  and  will  probably  never  be  rebuilt.  When  the  hand 
of  time  has  marred  the  extended  epitaph,  inscribed  on 
marble,  his  name  will  still  be  found,  written  imperish- 
ably  in  our  missionary  Valhalla  among  those  of  men  who 
have  shut  the  doors  to  selfish  enjoyment,  wealth,  and 
ease,  who  have  shaped  the  beginnings  of  missions  and 
planted  the  small  seeds  of  great  future  success.  Sig- 
nificant as  was  his  share  in  an  age  movement  of  noblest 
consequence  to  men,  his  death  came  on  a  stage  set  with 
humbleness  and  obscurity,  lighted  only  by  the  glow 
of  his  heart's  thoughtful  generosity.  While  on  a  journey 
to  the  South,  he  was  arrested  by  illness  at  Edgefield  in 
South  Carolina.  Unaware  of  the  dangerous  nature  of 
his  malady,  without  a  home,  without  a  place  to  lay  his 
head,  with  no  tear  of  kindred  affection  at  his  death-bed, 
with  nothing  else  for  him  to  do  but  quietly  to  die,  Luther 
Rice,  organizer  of  missions  and  founder  of  a  university, 
calmly  directed  that  his  horse  and  sulky  and  his  light 
personal  baggage,  his  only  earthly  effects,  be  sent  to  the 
college. 

Aye,  take  them  to  the  college,  let  them  be 
My  dying  testament.    I  shall  be  dead 
To-night. 

During  his  mortal  illness  his  mind  seemed  to  revert  to  the 
early  missionary  society,  composed  of  students  of  whom 
he  was  one,  and  in  hours  of  great  bodily  weakness  he 
entered  upon  a  detailed  account  of  it  with  all  that  clear- 
ness and  energy  for  which  his  mind  was  distinguished. 
As  the  mighty  intellect  of  Napoleon  returns  in  his  dying 


DIVERSITIES   OF  GIFTS  49 

delirium  to  France,  Josephine,  and  the  head  of  the  army, 
as  Agassi z,  who  grew  great  in  the  use  of  the  English 
speech,  returns  to  die  in  French,  his  mother's  tongue, 
as  Alexander  Adam,  master  of  a  high  school,  imagines 
himself  plying  again  his  vocation,  and  exclaims,  "  It  grows 
dark;  boys,  you  may  go";  so  in  his  delirium,  Rice,  re- 
turning to  the  associations  and  soul-stirring  events  of  his 
early  missionary  career,  is  represented  as  thus  breaking 
the  mournful  silence : 

Hark!  did  you  speak  of  India? 
Or  was  I  dreaming  of  it?    Yet  methought, 
I  heard  the  voice  of  Newell — was  it  thine, 
My  Judson?    Thou  panoplied  of  God! 

These  river  damps  have  loaded  me  with  chills. 
So  I  but  illy  hear  thee !    Bring  ye  news  ? 
Have  dying  pagans  turned  to  Christ  to-day? 
Oh,  I  have  walked  a  weary  round !  and  yet 
It  was  not  wearying — for  I  had  rod 
And  staff  in  all  the  promises — 

But  Judson,  see! 
Thy  wife  is  falling  there,  she  falls!  what  she, 
The  good — the  brave — the  fair! 
Ah !  no !  it  was  a  dream !    Methought 
I  was  in  India— but  see  ye,  friends 
Are  all  beside  me!     Ah,  Boardman!   is  it  thou 

that  speaks? 
Yonder,  within  the  jungle  where  he  toiled, 
They  dug  his  grave. 

I  catch  a  glimpse  of  those  I  see  beyond! 
Come  nearer.    I  have  much  to  say — and  I 
Am  passing  like  the  shadow  on  the  face 
Of  time. 

But,  ere  I  mount,  grant  me  this  one  request; 
Take  all,  and  give  the  college.    Let  the  wealth, 
Which  some  might  bring  to  gild  my  coffin  with, 
Be  consecrated  where  was  my  poor  life. 
Nothing  for  me— but  everything  for  God. 


50  THE   IMMORTAL   SEVEN 

And  let  me  die,  as  I  have  lived,  all  armed 
For  battle,  on  the  tented  field. 

Heard  ye  my  request? 
Aye,  take  them  to  the  college!    Let  me  die 
With  their  departed  spirits  hovering 
Around  me,  and  their  benisons  shall  drop 
Like  dew  upon  my  soul! 

Hall  the  Beloved 

Among  the  Sacred  Seven  Gordon  Hall  appears  to  have 
been  the  beloved  disciple.  He  seemed  to  fill  the  eye  of  his 
teachers  and  friends.  "  He  was  ordained  and  stamped  a 
missionary  by  the  sovereign  hand  of  God,"  said  Samuel 
J.  Mills.  Williams  College  promptly  appointed  him  tutor, 
and  Woodbury,  Connecticut,  issued  a  flattering  call  to 
him  to  settle  as  pastor.  "  Then  the  heart  of  the  mis- 
sionary came  out."  "  No,  others  will  be  left  whose  health 
or  preengagement  requires  them  to  stay  at  home,  but  I 
can  sleep  on  the  ground,  can  endure  hunger  and  hard- 
ship. God  calls  me  to  the  heathen."  Such  was  his 
heroism  that,  if  the  missionary  society  should  fail  him, 
he  would  work  his  passage  and  throw  himself  on  the 
natives  for  support.  Our  literature  will  be  searched  in 
vain  for  a  more  creditable  and  energetic  piece  of  composi- 
tion, written  chiefly  by  him,  than  is  discovered  in  the 
protest  with  which  the  missionaries  faced  the  governor 
when  they  were  ordered  to  leave  India.  It  is  instinct 
with  mental  energy  and  moral  force.  Nothing  brings 
a  man  with  a  conscience  to  a  full  halt  so  surely  as  for 
a  determined  religious  soul  to  take  his  stand  against 
egregious  wrong  with  the  witness  which  each  person  has 
in  himself.  Wickedness  is  weak  when  directly  confronted 
with  a  pungent  protest.  On  reaching  the  second  and  third 
sections  in  this  grave,  nearly  inspired  deprecation,  the 
solemn  "  God  Forbid  "  rises  into  the  realm  of  the  morally 
sublime  and  is  perfectly  overwhelming  in  effectiveness. 


DIVERSITIES  OF  GIFTS  51 

Your  excellency  knows  perfectly  well,  that  whenever  human 
commands  run  counter  to  the  divine  commands,  they  cease  to 
become  obligatory.  By  all  the  dread  of  being  found  on  the 
catalogue  of  those  who  persecute  the  church  of  God  and  resist 
the  salvation  of  men,  we  entreat  your  excellency  not  to  oppose 
the  prayers  and  efforts  of  the  church,  by  sending  back  those 
whom  the  church  has  sent  forth  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  to 
preach  his  gospel  among  the  heathen.  But  should  your  excel- 
lency finally  disregard  the  considerations  we  have  presented, 
should  we  be  compelled  to  leave  this  land,  we  can  only  say, 
Adieu,  till  we  meet  you,  face  to  face,  at  God's  tribunal. 

We  are  bound  to  think  well  of  a  missionary  that  could 
encounter  wickedness  in  high  places  with  a  mastery  like 
that.  Yet  it  is  with  the  divine  reality  of  religion  embodied 
in  young  men  of  that  caliber,  clothed  with  a  power  not  of 
this  world,  that  we  are  here  and  all  along  concerned.  In 
his  address  in  the  Mahratta  language  he  rose  to  heights 
of  eloquence,  and  was  celebrated  among  the  Brahmins 
for  consummate  ability  in  discussion. 

When  worn  with  fatigue  on  a  missionary  tour,  no  other 
place  being  available,  Gordon  Hall  put  up  at  a  heathen 
temple  for  the  night.  He  spread  his  mat  in  the  veranda 
and  lay  down,  but,  finding  himself  cold,  removed  to  a 
warmer  place;  this,  however,  he  found  occupied  by  two 
sick  men,  one  of  whom  soon  died.  About  four  o'clock 
in  the  morning  he  called  up  the  lads  who  were  with  him, 
and  was  making  preparation  for  proceeding  on  his  jour- 
ney, when  he  was  suddenly  seized  with  the  cholera.  The 
spasms  were  so  immediate  and  violent,  that  he  fell  help- 
less to  the  ground.  His  best  and  most  effective  remedies 
he  had  exhausted  in  ministering  characteristically  to 
others.  Being  laid  upon  his  mat,  he  attempted  to  take  the 
small  quantity  of  medicine  which  remained  in  his  pos- 
session, but  it  was  immediately  rejected.  He  then  told 
his  attendants  that  he  should  not  recover.  Calmly  he 
gave  directions  concerning  the  disposition  of  his  watch 


52  THE  IMMORTAL   SEVEN 

and  clothing  and  of  his  body.  Death  overtook  him,  as  it 
came  to  Goujon,  the  sculptor,  who  with  chisel  in  hand 
had  his  eye  fixed  on  a  half-carved  statue.  With  much 
difficulty  the  lads  who  accompanied  Mr.  Hall  procured 
a  grave  for  him  in  a  Mohammedan  cemetery  and,  having 
shrouded  him  in  his  blanket,  they  laid  him,  uncoffined,  in 
his  humble  bed  and  ".left  him  alone  in  his  glory."  His 
heroic  death  adds  immensely  to  the  moral  treasure  of 
the  world,  and  deserves  to  be  recorded  in  the  annals  of 
mankind  with  the  death  of  Wolfe  upon  the  Heights  of 
Abraham,  of  the  elder  Pitt  in  the  Parliament  house,  and 
of  the  younger  Adams  in  the  Capitol  at  Washington,  as 
it  has  in  it  all  the  elements  of  moral  sublimity.  He  was 
well-born,  well-connected,  well-educated,  early  well-placed 
in  a  fine  New  England  environment.  Gifted,  spirited,  a 
complete  gentleman  of  perfect  poise,  a  moral  pioneer, 
having  a  devoted  zeal  worthy  of  apostolic  days,  qualified 
by  his  bold  traits  of  character  to  lead  in  a  daring  enter- 
prise— after  an  illness  of  barely  eight  hours  his  body 
takes  possession  of  a  promised  land — 

Whence  his  uncoffined  clay- 
Shall  break  again,  most  wondrous  thought, 

Before  the  judgment  day, 
And  stand  with  glory  wrapt  around 

in  a  land  redeemed,  the  heathen  temple  where  he  died 
being  replaced,  and  the  heathen  Hindu  Pantheon  over- 
thrown. 

The  Teacher  dies;  he  came  to  plant, 

Deep  in  a  heathen  soil, 
The  germ  of  everlasting  life; 

He  faints  amid  the  toil. 

Strange  olive  brows  with  tears  were  wet. 

As  a  lone  grave  was  made, 
And  there,  'mid  Asia's  arid  sand, 

Salvation's  herald  laid. 


J  *    3    ~>  3 


DIVERSITIES  OF   GIFTS  53 

But  bright  that  shroudless  clay  shall  burst 

From  its  uncoffin'd  bed, 
When  the  Archangel's  awful  trump 

Convokes  the  righteous  dead. 

The  Prophecy  of  a' Great  Renown 

With  the  honors  of  valedictorian  in  September,  1808, 
Gordon  Hall  had  graduated  from  Williams  College, 
located  in  "  The  Piedmont  of  America/'  so  called  because, 
walled  around  by  hills,  in  striking  scenery  it  approaches 
Italian  beauty.  Western  Massachusetts  supplies  a  strong 
argument  for  the  effects  of  environment  when  it  produces 
such  characters  as  Jonathan  Edwards,  Mark  Hopkins, 
Mary  Lyon,  John  Todd,  Bryant,  the  Humphreys,  D wight 
L.  Moody,  and  becomes  the  home  of  the  youthful  "  re- 
formers before  the  reformation."  At  Williams  College 
Hall  became  a  bosom  companion  of  Samuel  J.  Mills, 
James  Richards,  and  other  kindred  spirits,  and  the  as- 
similative power  of  an  ardent  piety  is  witnessed  in  the 
fact,  stated  by  Byram  Green,  that  it  was  from  the  im- 
pressions made  by  the  study  of  geography  in  their  sopho- 
more year  in  college  that  the  missionary  enterprise  was 
projected.  Dr.  Jedediah  Morse,  who  was  one  of  those 
portrayed  by  the  artist  in  the  act  of  officiating  in  the  lay- 
ing on  of  hands  when  Hall  and  his  associates  were 
ordained,  was  the  father  of  American  geography  as  gen- 
erally used  in  the  United  States  and  in  foreign  countries. 
His  works  were  republished  abroad  and  translated  into 
French  and  German. 

It  was  not  until  four  years  after  the  ordination  that 
grammar  and  geography  were  required  to  be  taught  in 
the  English  schools  of  Salem,  and  globes  were  not  intro- 
duced for  eight  years.  Before  that  time  young  people 
had  to  wait  for  possible  years  at  college  to  receive  train- 
ing that  would  now  be  given  them  in  high  school,  yes, 


54  THE   IMMORTAL  SEVEN 

even  in  the  lower  grammar  grades.  So  Hall  and  his 
companions  met  geography  in  Williams.  The  primitive 
edition  of  Morse's  work  in  two  large  octavo  volumes,  pub- 
lished in  1 79 1,  was  read  in  those  days  by  eager  minds 
through  and  through.  The  maps  were  printed  in  different 
colors.  By  this  pictorial  vividness  the  portions  of  the 
globe  visualized  respectively  the  regions  that  were  savage, 
barbarous,  half -civilized,  civilized,  and  enlightened.  Re- 
vivals were  abroad.  The  sight  of  Hall  and  Mills  and 
Richards  had  been  illumined.  In  the  simplest  primary 
study  their  eyes  were  opened  to  the  fact  that  immense 
populations  dwelling  in  countries  shaded  on  the  map  were 
like  the  man  of  Macedonia  reaching  out  their  hands  to 
them. 

A  Token  from  the  Skies 

One  Saturday  afternoon,  in  August,  1806,  it  was  deter- 
mined that  a  meeting  should  be  held  in  a  maple  grove 
between  the  college  buildings  and  the  Hoosac  River. 
On  account  of  the  weather,  which  was  hot  and  menaced 
rain,  the  men  from  the  East  College  and  some  others 
were  detained,  so  that  but  five  college  boys  were  present, 
only  one  of  whom  ever  reached  the  foreign  field  for 
permanent  work.  The  meeting  which  we  are  now  ap- 
proaching was  not,  as  is  sometimes  supposed,  without 
antecedents,  having  separate  origination,  and  so  detached 
and  causative,  but  was  in  a  series  which  were  being  held 
twice  a  week  by  the  young  men,  in  summer,  out-of-doors. 
The  groves  were  "  God's  first  temples."  A  dark  cloud 
that  had  been  rising  from  the  west  soon  burst  upon  them, 
and  they  hurried  for  shelter  under  the  overhanging  sides 
of  a  haystack  in  the  clearing,  called  "  Sloane's  Meadow." 
While  the  lightning  was  cleaving  the  heavens  with  rivers 
of  fire,  the  service  was  continued  in  this  extemporized 
cave  behind  the  sloping  sides  of  the  haystack.    The  rapid 


DIVERSITIES  OF  GIFTS  55 

prayer  of  Mills  that  God  would  strike  down  any  arm 
that  opposed  the  heralds  of  the  Cross,  was  accompanied 
by  the  artillery  of  the  skies.  The  bright  rainbow  that 
spanned  the  heavens  as  they  went  forth  from  the  hal- 
lowed place  was  a  propitious  token. 

The  sacred  spof  was  long  unidentified,  but  Hon.  By  ram 
Green,  who  was  present  at  the  meeting,  indicated  the 
site,  forty-eight  years  later,  and  setting  up  the  stake 
with  his  own  hand,  marked  the  spot,  which  is  held 
in  reverence,  like  the  place  of  retirement  for  prayer  of 
Washington  at  Valley  Forge,  of  Damaris  and  her  sis- 
ters at  Lystra,  and  of  the  Divine  Man  of  Galilee  at 
Gennesaret.  That  the  memory  of  the  place  might  be 
imperishable  there  came  first  the  gift  of  a  dollar,  a 
gold  one,  to  buy  a  cedar  stake  at  least,  then  through  the 
generosity  of  Harvey  Rice,  a  classmate  of  President 
Hopkins,  the  far-famed  monument  of  marble,  crowned 
by  a  globe  three  feet  in  diameter,  which,  with  the  con- 
tinents traced  in  map  lines  on  its  surface,  typifies  the 
expression  in  the  last  command,  "  all  the  world."  Here 
is  a  striking  twofold  coincidence.  The  missionary  enter- 
prise in  William  Carey's  mind  first  took  definite  shape 
from  reading  Cook's  Voyages  Round  the  World.  As 
he  taught  his  geography  class  at  school  from  a  globe  of 
leather  of  his  own  construction,  it  flashed  painfully  upon 
him  how  small  a  portion  possessed  any  knowledge  of  a 
Saviour.  Contemplating  the  globe,  he  arrived  at  the  con- 
clusion that  the  gospel  must  be  sent  to  the  heathen.  His 
idea  grew  into  a  passion  with  him,  and  he  could  scarcely 
talk  or  preach,  and  he  could  never  pray,  without  reverting 
to  the  subject. 

God  in  History 

"On  Thursday  morning,  June  28,  1810,  there  might 
have  been  seen  some  six  or  eight  young  men  walking  into 


56  THE  IMMORTAL  SEVEN 

the  village  of  Bradford  from  the  Seminary  on  Andover 
Hill.  Four  of  them  were  introduced  to  a  grave  and 
reverend  body  of  fathers  in  the  ministry,  who  as  the 
General  Association  of  Massachusetts  had  commenced  a 
session  there  the  day  previous  for  the  transaction  of  busi- 
ness, no  part  of  which  contemplated  such  a  presentation  " 
as  was  made  to  them.  Some  world  events  were  just 
ahead,  and  it  will  be  seen  that  they  turned  on  the  per- 
sonal impression  made  by  these  young  men.  Their 
appearance  "before  the  Association  produced  an  inde- 
scribable sensation.  While  they  were  making  their  state- 
ment and  answering  questions,  the  tears  were  flowing 
fast  down  the  cheeks  of  the  listeners.  Gray  hairs  were 
all  weeping."  The  young  men  declare  that  they  are 
impressed  with  the  duty  of  personally  attempting  a  mis- 
sion to  the  heathen  wherever  God  in  his  Providence 
should  open  the  way,  and  feeling  their  youth  and  in- 
experience, they  look  up  to  their  fathers  and  respectfully 
solicit  their  advice,  direction,  and  prayers.  Thus  it  will 
be  seen  that  the  fire  broke  out  unexpectedly,  and  it  is 
obvious  how  the  material  had  been  brought  together. 
The  minds  of  the  young  men  had  been  acting  on  each 
other,  and  like  influences  and  like  circumstances  pre- 
pared them  for  a  combination  which  made  a  starting- 
point  for  early  progress.  "  The  young  men  take  their 
leave  and  return  to  Andover,  ten  miles  on  foot  as  they 
came."  On  testimony  of  Mr.  Nott,  they  walked  along, 
"  anxious  and  solemn  in  their  aspect  and  spirit,  wholly 
uncertain  and  perfectly  unable  to  conjecture  what  action 
with  regard  to  the  memorial  and  themselves  the  Asso- 
ciation would  feel  authorized  to  take."  On  the  follow- 
ing day,  June  twenty-ninth,  it  was  voted :  "  That  there 
be  instituted  by  the  General  Association  of  Massachusetts, 
The  American  Board  of  Foreign  Missions,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  devising  ways  and  means  and  adopting  and  prose- 


DIVERSITIES  OF  GIFTS  57 

cuting  measures  for  promoting  the  spread  of  the  gospel 
in  heathen  lands."  Later  three  of  the  young  men  were 
ordained  at  Salem,  and  were  forwarded  to  their  long- 
coveted  field  of  labor.  They  are  now  a  name  and  a  praise 
in  all  the  earth.  Their  record  is  on  high.  They  hold 
their  preeminence  4ike  fixed  stars  in  the  firmament,  though 
sometimes  outshone  by  planets  less  remote  in  time  or 
place. 

To  the  memorial  were  attached  the  names  of  Judson, 
Mills,  Nott,  and  Newell.  At  first  it  had  also  the  names 
of  Rice  and  James  Richards,  but  these  were  stricken  off 
at  the  suggestion  of  Doctor  Spring,  lest  the  Association 
be  made  apprehensive  by  the  formidableness  of  sustain- 
ing such  a  number  in  the  foreign  field.  "  The  resolve  to 
send  four  missionaries  abroad  was  regarded  by  many  as  a 
doubtful  movement,  and  Doctor  D wight,  of  Yale  College, 
thought  it  unwise."  Only  one  member  of  the  Prudential 
Committee  was  "  decidedly  in  the  affirmative."  The 
prominence  of  Mills  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  his  name, 
though  he  belonged  to  a  later  class  than  Hall  at  college, 
and  Judson,  Newell,  and  Nott,  at  Andover,  and  so  would 
not  naturally  be  on  the  memorial,  is  conspicuous  and 
obviously  made  so  for  the  reason  that  it  carried  both  in- 
fluence and  power. 

Mills  was  ordained  in  the  same  county,  and  by  sub- 
stantially the  same  ministers,  as  Judson,  and  the  place 
was  the  Old  South  Church  in  Newburyport.  Then  for 
the  first  time  in  New  England,  and  probably  in  the  coun- 
try, the  Lord's  Supper  was  celebrated  by  nearly  seven  hun- 
dred communicants  from  various  and  distant  churches, 
meeting  together.  The  tything  men,  whose  duty  was  to 
maintain  order  and  propriety  in  the  house  of  God,  oc- 
cupied rear  seats,  and  carried  their  official  rods,  still  in 
evidence,  which  were  used  to  strike  the  rebellious  youth 
with  awe.    On  April  fifteenth,  1861,  the  duty  of  maintain- 


58  THE  IMMORTAL  SEVEN 

ing  order  and  propriety  in  the  house  of  God  was  relegated 
from  the  tything  men  to  the  sexton,  and  he  was  instructed 
to  be  in  attendance  during  public  worship  and  "  to  attend 
all  public  meetings  "  for  this  purpose.  Special  seats  are 
still  shown,  that  were  reserved  for  Negroes,  who  were 
the  slaves  owned  by  the  rich  old  sea-captains.  A  sea- 
captain  is  said  to  have  occupied  the  end  of  every  pew 
down  the  broad  aisle.  The  sanctuary  was  at  that  time 
warmed  in  winter  only  by  foot-stoves.  A  great  sensa- 
tion was  produced  later  by  the  introduction  of  stoves  at  an 
expense  of  one  hundred  dollars ;  the  sexton  had  the  habit 
during  service  of  walking  a  third  of  the  way  up  the  broad 
aisle,  puffing  his  breath  into  the  air,  to  ascertain  if  the 
heat  was  sufficient,  and  usually  he  was  able  to  detect  his 
own  frosty  breath.  The  candidates  for  church-member- 
ship were  required  to  give  an  account  of  their  religious 
experience  in  writing.  In  the  crypt  the  bones  of  White- 
field  are  exposed  to  view.  The  whispering  gallery  in  the 
church  is  so  perfect  that  when  everything  else  is  still, 
you  can  hear  a  watch  tick  a  hundred  and  fifty  feet  away. 

Successors,  Not  Rivals 

We  have  followed  the  movement  of  the  guiding  pillar 
from  Williamstown  through  Andover  and  Bradford  to 
Salem  to  show  distinctly  the  place  of  transfer  of  leadership 
in  the  divine  enterprise  from  Samuel  J.  Mills  to  Adoniram 
Judson.  It  is  much  easier  to  take  the  lead  than  to  keep  it. 
It  will  be  noted  that  of  all  the  six  men  immortalized  by 
their  relations  to  this  initial  memorial,  Mills  is  the  only 
one  who  does  not  go  to  India.  Mills'  specialty  was 
initiative.  He  had  vision.  He  saw  intuitively  the  thing 
to  be  done,  and  then  undertook  patiently  to  assemble 
the  forces  that  would  accomplish  it.  He  was  retained 
at  home  to  beckon  to  the  partners  of  those  fishers  of 
men  to  come  and  help  them.    It  was  strictly  typical  of 


DIVERSITIES  OF  GIFTS  59 

him  to  ascertain  that  not  a  Bible  could  be  found  for 
sale  or  to  be  given  away  in  New  Orleans,  and  hence  to 
suggest  the  establishment  of  a  National  Bible  Society, 
which  was  accordingly  instituted  the  next  year,  and  has 
since  printed  seventy-five  million  copies  of  the  Holy 
Scriptures;  including  those  portions  which  many  desire 
to  have  bound  separately,  it  now  publishes  two  million 
copies  with  each  revolving  year.  He  was  magnetic,  tact- 
ful, adroit  in  keeping  the  forces  together,  having  less 
impetuosity  than  Judson,  but  it  is  also  true  of  him  that 
after  bringing  about  an  organization  of  "  the  brethren," 
he  filled  a  sheet  of  foolscap  with  attempts  at  a  consti- 
tution, but  finally  left  that  part  to  another ;  while  on  the 
other  handjudson's  memorial  to  the  Association  is  a  gem, 
for  he  was  a  master  of  terse,  singularly  lucid  statement. 
At  the  meeting  in  Professor  Stuart's  study  in  Andover, 
Tuesday,  June  26,  18 10,  when  the  memorial  was  advised 
in  anticipation  of  the  presentation  of  their  case  at  Brad- 
ford, it  was  inevitable  that  Judson  should  be  designated 
as  the  one  to  write  it.  Judson  now  is  always  at  the  head. 
He  possessed  certain  qualities  which  fitted  him  to  act  in 
an  important,  critical  juncture.  As  he  had  unquestion- 
ably endowments  of  the  highest  order,  a  genius  for  gen- 
eralship, and  was  not  without  self-reliance  and  a  certain 
love  of  precedence,  you  will  now  never  find  him  in  a 
second  place.  Heroic  men  must  have  campaigns  of 
some  kind  until  we  come  to  the  divine  harmony  of  the 
millennium ;  so  Judson  threw  into  this  one  all  the  energy 
of  his  impassioned  character.  As  one  star  differeth  from 
another  star  in  glory,  it  is  extremely  suggestive  to  notice 
that,  whenever  American  missionaries  are  listed,  his  lus- 
trous name  leads  all  the  rest.  With  such  an  ardent  mind, 
of  such  mighty  energies,  to  labor  as  Doctor  Thomas  did 
in  Bengal  for  seventeen  years  before  baptizing  his  first 
convert,  and  to  preach  eloquently  as  Robert  Hall  did  at 


60  THE  IMMORTAL  SEVEN 

Bristol  for  seventeen  years  without  the  addition  of  a 
single  convert  to  his  church,  would  have  laid  Judson  in 
a  grave  before  his  time.  He  arrived  in  Rangoon  in  July, 
1813,  and  baptized  his  first  Burman  convert,  June  27, 
1 819.  There  were  three  distinct  missions  established 
by  the  Sacred  Seven — Bombay,  Burma,  and  Ceylon.  If 
the  mission  at  Bombay  has  been  less  successful  in  the 
number  of  conversions  from  the  heathen  than  some 
which  have  followed,  it  should  never  be  forgotten  that 
the  experiments  and  labors  and  lessons  of  that  mission 
contributed  to  the  success  of  the  others  and  to  the  devel- 
opment of  the  religious  spirit  at  home  by  which  their  work 
was  begun  and  sustained. 


IV 


THROUGH  DEATH  TO  LIFE  OF  POWER 


IV 

THROUGH   DEATH   TO  LIFE  OF  POWER 

The  Time  is  Short 

THE  average  life  of  a  missionary  in  the  East  was  only 
about  five  years.  "  The  scythe  of  death  is  sweeping 
all  around  us."  Of  twenty  missionaries  who  entered  upon 
their  work  at  Bombay  before  1830,  five  died  and  seven 
had  returned  to  America.  By  1832  thirty  children  had 
been  born  to  the  missionaries,  nineteen  of  whom  had 
died.  In  the  first  twenty  years  of  the  history  of  this 
mission  the  number  of  missionaries  who  had  died  was 
greater  than  that  of  converts  who  had  been  baptized  from 
heathendom.  Samuel  Newell  did  not  know  that  he  was 
attacked  by  cholera  until  the  day  before  his  death.  He 
died  May  31,  1821,  lamented  by  the  Christian  world.  He 
and  Hall,  the  only  two  who  lived  and  died  in  the  service 
of  the  American  Board  that  sent  them  out,  were  both 
thus  suddenly  summoned,  victims  of  the  same  disease. 

An  Elegy  that  Led  to  a  Missionary  Career 

When  for  reasons  of  health,  Mrs.  Judson  was  return- 
ing to  this  country  in  1823,  it  was  inevitable  that  she 
should  visit  the  Nazareth  of  missions.  A  meeting  was 
arranged  in  her  honor.  A  young  lady  of  twenty,  Sarah 
Hall,  one  of  the  youngest  members  of  the  First  Baptist 
Church  in  Salem,  who  at  the  age  of  thirteen  had  writ- 
ten a  poem  upon  the  death  of  little  Roger  Williams,  son 
of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Judson,  now  being  much  impressed 
by  the  death  of  Colman,  an  associate  in  the  mission  field 
with  the  Judsons,  wrote  a  beautiful  elegy.    As  a  pretty 

63 


64  THE  IMMORTAL  SEVEN 

feature  of  the  meeting  the  Salem  girl  was  put  forward, 
despite  her  low  pleadings,  to  read  the  elegy  which  had 
been  given  a  wide  publicity  by  the  admiring  public  press. 
She  finished  and,  without  lifting  her  head  to  perceive 
that  the  dark  eyes  of  Mrs.  Judson  were  filled  with  tears, 
stole  away  to  hide  her  blushes  in  a  retired  corner.  Had 
it  been  possible  to  turn  a  few  leaves  in  the  book  of  human 
destiny,  what  interest  would  have  been  attracted  to  this 
exceptional  meeting  between  Mrs.  Judson  and  the  timid, 
talented,  poetic  Salem  girl  who  was  to  be  her  successor 
in  the  home  of  Judson;  and  the  poem  was  central  to 
this  further  romance.  It  came  under  the  eye  of  a  slight, 
manly  student  of  Water ville  College  on  the  Kennebec, 
George  Dana  Boardman.  It  led  to  an  acquaintance  with 
the  author  and  to  their  marriage.  He  came  to  Salem 
to  labor  during  a  vacation  of  nine  weeks  for  the  Clarkson 
Society,  which  had  been  formed  by  some  benevolent 
ladies  for  the  benefit  of  the  colored  population  in  this 
city.  Slavery  continued  in  Salem  until  after  the  Revolu- 
tion, when  there  were  here  about  one  hundred  slaves. 
After  Mr.  Boardman's  day  Mrs.  Lawrence,  who  was 
herself  colored,  long  instructed  the  colored  school,  and 
had  at  least  forty  scholars.  The  school  was  on  Mill 
Street,  on  city  land  opening  on  the  gravel-pit.  It  was 
not  until  more  than  thirty  years  after  the  ordination  that 
the  colored  population  became  dissatisfied  with  their  sepa- 
rate school  as  being  too  distinctive  in  point  of  complexion. 
After  the  "  Mayflower  "  landed  the  pilgrims  at  Plymouth, 
she  engaged  in  the  slave-trade,  and  the  place  where  she 
berthed  is  pointed  out  here  as  is  the  memorial  at  Plymouth, 
for  she  landed  many  more  individuals  here  than  she 
ever  did  on  Plymouth  Rock.  The  Clarkson  Society  was 
named  for  the  man  who  created  a  powerful  excitement 
in  England  by  causing  to  be  made  an  engraving  of 
the  interior  of  a  slave-ship,  with  its  low  spaces  between 


THROUGH   DEATH   TO   LIFE   OF   POWER  65 

decks,  its  cell  gratings  and  barricades  for  the  confinement 
of  the  blacks. 

Through  Salem's  Doorways 

Standing  in  her  place  in  the  vestry  of  the  First  Baptist 
Church,  faced  out'  toward  Asia,  our  Sarah  uttered  as 
her  final  sentiment  before  passing  over  the  threshold, 
"  If  thy  presence  go  not  with  me,  carry  us  not  up  hence." 

The  slender  figure  of  Mr.  Boardman,  his  transparent 
complexion,  the  blue  veins  on  his  temples,  formed  a  sad 
tablet  on  which  any  one  could  read  that  what  he  did  in 
India  he  must  do  quickly.  His  short  life,  which  carries 
us  back  to  the  heroic  age  of  the  church,  was  not  lived  in 
vain,  for  by  great  good  fortune  his  brief  work  fell  in 
part  among  the  Karens  who,  in  the  most  exact  sense,  were 
heathen,  if  by  heathen  are  meant  people  of  the  heath, 
bushwhackers,  unorganized,  untrained,  but  with  immense 
immediate  possibilities  for  better  things.  They  were  walk- 
ing through  dry  places,  seeking  rest  and  finding  none. 
The  house  seemed  in  a  peculiar  sense  empty,  swept,  and 
garnished,  with  no  prior  occupant  fighting  to  keep  pos- 
session. The  worst  and  the  best  of  life  in  India  are  both 
religious.  In  contrast  with  the  Karens  were  the  Burmese, 
who,  like  the  Mohammedans,  were  already  filled  full  with 
a  stubborn  false  religion,  and  amid  their  countless  pagodas 
were  given  up  to  hardness  of  heart.  Their  religion 
was  almost  worse  than  none.  But  with  the  Karens, 
trustful,  affectionate,  childlike,  it  was,  "  Come  in,  thou 
blessed  of  the  Lord,  wherefore  standest  thou  without?" 

The  inscription  on  Boardman's  monument  was  written 
by  his  son,  distinguished  and  titled  throughout  a  long 
brilliant  pastorate  in  Philadelphia,  and  it  shows  the 
quality  of  the  early  missionary  and  his  Salem  bride, 
for  a  son  must  be  well-born  and  inherit  abilities  of  the  first 
order  to  rise  to  such  eloquence  and  vigor  and  nicety  of 


66  THE  IMMORTAL  SEVEN 

expression.  Here  is  a  model  in  English  rhetoric.  Among 
the  inscriptions  currently  known,  not  a  dozen  in  our 
language  will  equal  it,  and  none  will  surpass  it.  On  one 
side  of  the  monument  is  written : 

Sacred  to  the  Memory  of 

GEORGE  DANA  BOAKDMAN 

American  Missionary  to  Burma 

Born,  Feb.  8,  1801  Died,  Feb  II,  1831 

His  epitaph  is  written  in  the  adjoining  forests 

On  the  other  side  of  the  monument  is  found  this  in- 
scription : 

Ask  in  the  Christian  villages  of  yonder  moun- 
tains— Who  taught  you  to  abandon  the  worship  of 
demons?  Who  raised  you  from  vice  to  morality? 
Who  brought  you  your  Bibles,  your  Sabbaths,  and 
your  words  of  prayer?    Let  the  reply  be  his  eulogy. 

A  Woman's  Way 

Mrs.  Boardman  captivated  the  Karens,  and  was  almost 
idolized  by  them.  On  her  missionary  tours  among  the 
jungles  she  was  accompanied  by  her  "  beloved  "  Karens 
as  a  body-guard.  On  one  of  these  expeditions  after  she 
became  a  widow,  surrounded  by  her  dusky  attendants,  she 
met  in  a  rain-storm  a  Christian  English  officer  who  was 
hunting  in  India,  and  he,  from  her  uncommonly  fair 
countenance  and  charming  ways,  "  almost  mistook  her  for 
an  angel  visitant  from  a  better  sphere."  The  unexpected 
meeting  formed  the  basis  of  a  lasting  friendship  between 
them.  There  are  many  testimonials  to  her  personal 
loveliness  and  grace  of  manner.  Her  English  friends  in 
India  styled  her  "  the  most  finished  and  faultless  specimen 
of  an  American  woman  that  they  had  ever  known."    "  I 


•'      <      H<     ( 


THROUGH   DEATH   TO  LIFE  OF  POWER  67 

exceedingly  regret  that  there  is  no  portrait  of  the  second 
Mrs.  Judson,"  said  Doctor  Judson,  to  whom  she  was  mar- 
ried, April  10,  1834.  "  Her  soft  blue  eyes,  her  lovely  face, 
and  elegant  form  have  never  been  delineated  on  canvas." 
The  Karens  kissed  her  shadow  as  she  passed.  They 
would  sometimes  put  their  tawny  tapering  fingers  upon 
her  neatly  formed  slippers,  so  unlike  their  own  clumsy 
sandals.  Such  was  her  modest,  unconscious  grace  that 
her  letters  contain  almost  no  allusions  to  herself. 
There  is  something  exceedingly  touching  in  the  affec- 
tionate simplicity  of  her  request,  sent  home  to  Salem: 
"  You  must  let  the  children  and  my  sweet  sister  make 
each  a  mark  upon  a  paper  that  I  may  have  some  token 
from  their  little  hands."  She  shows  that  it  is  possible 
to  get  religion  into  the  public  schools  if  it  be  embodied 
in  a  person  of  high  quality.  She  was  always  allowed  to 
teach  as  her  own  conscience  dictated.  It  is  an  honor 
to  Salem,  that  an  appropriation  was  obtained  from  the 
government  in  India  "  for  schools  to  be  conducted  on 
the  model  of  her  schools  at  Tavoy."  Her  education  took 
place  in  the  atmosphere  of  schools,  but  only  in  small  part 
by  the  use  of  their  facilities.  Her  translation  of  Bun- 
yan's  "  Pilgrim's  Progress "  into  Burmese  is  a  classic. 
Her  hymns,  about  twenty  in  number,  were  the  best  in 
the  early  Chapel  Hymn  Book  which  she  edited.  As, 
in  company  with  her  husband,  she  was  returning  to 
Salem  with  health  impaired,  when  Edward,  her  dis- 
tinguished son  who  has  erected  the  Judson  Memorial 
Church  in  New  York  City,  was  but  eight  months  old,  on 
reaching  the  Isle  of  France,  where  Harriet  Newell  had 
died  and  was  buried,  she  had  so  much  improved,  that  it 
was  decided  that  Doctor  Judson  should  return  to  the 
place  where  he  had  unfurled  his  standard  upon  the 
enemy's  ground.  What  beauty  can  exceed  the  exquisite- 
ness  of  this  precious  little  gem  of  song  written  by  her  at 


68  THE   IMMORTAL   SEVEN 

the  impending  separation,  when  the  deeps  of  her  heart 
were  broken  up? 

We  part  on  this  green  islet,  love — 

Thou  for  the  Eastern  main, 
I  for  the  setting  sun,  love — 

Oh,  when  to  meet  again! 

The  music  of  thy  daughter's  voice 

Thou'lt  miss  for  many  a  year, 
And  the  merry  shout  of  thine  elder  boys 

Thou'lt  list  in  vain  to  hear. 

My  tears  fall  fast  for  thee,  love — 

How  can  I  say  farewell? 
But  go!  thy  God  be  with  thee,  love, 

Thy  heart's  deep  grief  to  quell. 

Yet  my  spirit  clings  to  thine,  love, 

Thy  soul  remains  with  me; 
And  oft  we'll  hold  communion  sweet, 

O'er  the  dark  and  distant  sea. 

Then  gird  thine  armor  on,  love, 

Nor  faint  thou  by  the  way, 
Till  Boodh  shall  fall  and  Burma's  sons 

Shall  own  Messiah's  sway! 

But  after  their  arrival  at  the  island  she  faded  per- 
ceptibly, and  was  once  more  borne  back  to  the  ship,  and 
her  husband,  under  these  alarming  conditions,  revised  his 
plan,  and  together  they  took  their  departure  "  for  the 
setting  sun."  On  their  route  is  another  islet,  a  towering, 
forbidding,  and  awesome  "  rock  of  the  sea,"  lifted  right 
up  two  thousand  feet  by  volcanic  action,  which  has  gained 
a  great  hold  on  the  imagination,  whether  we  fancy  it  as 
the  home  for  fourteen  years  of  a  solitary  man,  who  by 
excessive  fear  and  then  by  excessive  joy  became  dis- 
tracted, or  as  the  aerial  habitation  of  the  "  Man  of 
Destiny,"  that  pest  of  civil  society,  after  his  irretrievable 


THROUGH   DEATH   TO   LIFE  OF  POWER  69 

ruin  had  been  accomplished,  when  he,  as  pictured,  stands 
on  the  rocky,  beetling  cliffs  and  ruminates  the  livelong 
day  on  the  awful  occurrences  of  his  unexampled  career. 
The  rocky  prison  where  he  fretted  away  the  later  years 
of  his  tempestuous  life,  and  the  early  tomb  of  this  fallen 
conqueror  of  nations,  the  hero  of  the  sword,  callous  to 
everything  except  his  own  interests,  will  always  attract 
the  gaze  of  men.  Being  right  on  the  route  to  India,  St. 
Helena  was  once  a  sort  of  half-way  house,  and  greatly 
flourished  as  a  port  of  call.  But  the  opening  of  the  Suez 
Canal,  offering  a  short  cut  to  the  East  Indies,  deprived 
the  people  of  their  chief  means  of  support,  and  since  the 
British  Government  several  years  ago  withdrew  its  mili- 
tary station,  the  islanders  have  had  a  desperate  struggle 
for  existence,  and  Sir  Alfred  Moseley,  the  wealthy  Eng- 
lish philanthropist,  has  proposed  to  bring  three  thousand 
of  the  poverty-stricken  residents  to  California. 

A  Shade  Among  the  Shadows 

Unpromising  to  those  who  design  it  for  a  residence,  but 
a  welcome  sight  to  a  sea-worn  mariner,  St.  Helena 
stood  before  the  ship, "  Sophia  Walker/'  and  before  Cap- 
tain Codman  (a  name  honored  in  New  England),  who 
was  anxious  for  his  passenger  in  her  threatening  illness. 
Mrs.  Judson  had  given  twenty-one  of  her  forty-two  years 
to  Christian  service  in  a  heathen  land.  On  shipboard 
three  days  after  reaching  the  desired  haven,  the  dread  of 
burial  at  sea  done  away,  she  breathed  her  last.  The 
colors  of  the  ship  were  hoisted  at  half-mast,  and  imme- 
diately the  other  vessels  in  port  hung  out  the  same  signal. 
The  American  consul,  at  his  own  expense,  procured 
suits  of  appropriate  mourning  apparel  for  Mr.  Judson 
and  his  three  children.  Boats  were  connected  in  such  a 
way  as  to  form  a  funeral  procession,  three  going  ahead 
to  tow  that  which  carried  the  sacred  dust  of  the  gifted 


yO  THE  IMMORTAL  SEVEN 

woman,  and  in  this  form  they  advanced  with  a  slow, 
heavy  beat  of  their  oars.  Another  small  boat  followed, 
in  which  Mr.  Judson  with  three  of  his  children,  the  other 
three  having  been  left  in  India,  and  the  captain  of  the 
ship  were  seated  as  chief  mourners.  On  the  arrival 
of  the  melancholy  train,  the  procession  on  land,  all  shops 
being  closed  and  business  suspended,  was  followed  by 
a  concourse  numbering  about  one  hundred  of  the  inhab- 
itants of  the  island.  Mrs.  Judson  was  buried  the  same 
day  she  died ;  the  same  evening  the  ship,  carrying  Doctor 
Judson,  went  to  sea,  and  the  next  morning  the  rock  of 
the  ocean,  keeping  its  precious  treasure,  was  out  of  sight. 
Fiction  never  described  a  scene  more  soul-stirring  or 
better  adapted  to  enlist  the  deepest  sympathies  of  our 
nature.  Mrs.  Judson  rose  from  death  like  a  star  of  eve- 
ning for  Christian  and  heathen  mothers  long  to  gaze 
at.  A  beautiful,  affluent  banyan  tree  spreads  over  the 
grave  in  almost  the  exact  way  in  which  the  willow  that 
was  uprooted  by  tempests  in  the  hour  the  great  chieftain 
expired  upon  the  same  island,  used  to  extend  its  branches 
over  the  place  where  he  most  loved  to  sit.  We  can  almost 
see  the  measured  rise  and  fall  of  oars  in  Mrs.  Sigourney's 
poem : 

Mournfully,  tenderly, 

Bear  onward   your  load, 
The  oars  keeping  time 

O'er  the  billowy  road, 

While  boat  after  boat 

Gliding  slowly  the  while, 
Approach  the  rude  shores 

Of  the  ocean-beat  isle. 

But   where  is  that   chieftain, 

The  dread  of  the  free, 
Who  laid  down  his  scepter 

To  slumber  with  thee? 


THROUGH   DEATH   TO   LIFE  OF   POWER  ?I 

The  gray  islet  answer'd, 

"No  peace  could  he  find, 
So  his  ashes  rode  forth 

On  the  wave  and  the  wind: 

"Aw^ay,  thou  blood-shedder ! 

Earth-troubler,  away! 
Hide  not  'neath  my  cliffs 

On  the  terrible  day, 

"But   rest,    sainted    sister! 

And  hallow  my  dust, 
Till  the  last  trump  shall  waken 

The  souls  of  the  just." 

To  me  the  most  interesting  historical  object  in  all 
Europe  is  a  simple  shaft  of  granite  which  rises  from  the 
roadside  near  the  town  of  Wilna,  on  the  western  boundary 
of  Russia.  It  bears  two  inscriptions  in  the  Russian  lan- 
guage. On  that  side  of  the  shaft  which  faces  the  west 
are  these  words: 

Napoleon  Bonaparte  passed 
this  way  in  1812  with  410,000  men. 

On  the  other  side,  facing  east : 

Napoleon  Bonaparte  passed 
this  way  in  1812  with  9,000  men. 

He  fought,  and  half  the  world  was  his, 

He  died  without  a  rood  his  own; 
And  borrowed  of  his  enemies 

Six  foot  of  ground  to  lie  upon. 

From  the  early  grave  of  one  of  those  superior  beings 
that  stride,  like  Titans,  across  the  earth  and  leave  foot- 
prints never  to  be  effaced — the  first  place  of  burial  of 
that  emperor  who  caused  more  deaths  and  suffering  than 
any  other  mortal,  execrated  by  Byron  and  Wordsworth, 
who  yet  compare  his  fall  to  that  of  an  archangel — visitors 


J2,  THE   IMMORTAL   SEVEN 

go  to  the  grave  of  a  gentlewoman,  benevolent,  eminent, 
undefeated,  whose  only  ambition  was  to  serve  and  save. 
Napoleon  was  imprisoned  here  for  the  five  and  a  half 
years  just  preceding  his  death,  at  a  cost  to  the  British 
Crown  of  more  than  one  million  dollars  per  annum. 
When  dead,  it  did  not  occur,  as  it  seems,  to  any  kingdom 
under  the  sun  that  it  would  be  a  privilege  to  inscribe 
something  upon  his  tomb,  although  his  remains  lay  upon 
the  island  for  nearly  twenty  years.  Mrs.  L.  H.  Sigour- 
ney,  in  fine  poetic  fervor,  indulges  the  pleasant  conceit 
of  a  challenge  to  the  nations  of  the  earth  to  step  forward 
and  give  an  inscription : 

But  there  was  silence.    Not  a  sceptred  hand 
Received  the  challenge. 

And  lone  St.  Helena,  heart-sick  and  gray 
'Neath  rude  Atlantic's  scourging,  bade  the  moon, 
With  silent  finger,  point  the  traveler's  gaze 
To  an  unhonored  tomb. 

Some  tourists  had  made  the  following  record,  upon 
which  her  lines  were  suggested :  "  The  moon  of  St. 
Helena  shone  out,  and  there  we  saw  the  face  of  Napo- 
leon's sepulcher,  characterless,  uninscribed." 

Blow  softly,  gales !  for  he  no  more, 

St.  Helen,  rests  in  thee; 
He  whose  dominion  shook  the  earth 

And  stopped  but  with  the  sea. 

He  made  a  ruin  where  he  stalked, 

And  all  his  trodden  path 
Is  darkened  by  the  thunder-cloud 

Of  agony  and  wrath. 

She  shed  a  light  around  her  way, 

And  with  the  steps  of  prayer 
Raised  up  a  ladder  to  the  skies 

Which  brought  down  angels  there. 


THROUGH    DEATH    TO   LIFE  OF   POWER  73 

The  New  Testament  has  little  to  say  about  interments. 
It  is  filled  with  lessons  of  life,  but  an  exception  is  made 
in  the  matter  of  the  two  graves  in  the  early  church.  The 
contrast  is  so  marked  as  to  deserve  attention.  We  are 
first  led  for  our  instruction  to  the  sad  grave  of  those 
"  who  sold  a  possession  and  kept  back  a  part  of  the 
price,"  and  then  to  that  of  "  Stephen,  a  man  full  of 
faith,"  which  is  not  a  grave  at  all,  being  so  full  of  peace 
and  promise.  So  at  St.  Helena,  we  see,  on  the  one  hand, 
tranquillity,  repose  of  spirit,  and  the  divine  bestowal  of 
those  gracious  aids  known  as  dying  grace,  and,  on  the 
other,  the  disquiet,  after  life's  fitful  fever,  of  that  wild 
night  when  wilder  yet  was  the-  storm  that  raged  around 
the  soldier's  pillow — and  two  graves  only  geographically 
near  together,  as  if  by  design,  that  the  two  extremes  by 
comparison  and  contrast  might  emphasize  to  the  most 
ordinary  mind  their  distance  apart. 

Mournfully,  tenderly, 

Bear  onward  the  dead, 
Where  the  warrior  has  lain 

Let  the  Christian  be  laid: 
No  place  more  befitting, 

O  rock  of  the  sea! 
Never  such  treasure 

Was  hidden  in  thee. 

Mournfully,  tenderly, 

Solemn,  and  slow, 
Tears  are  bedewing 

The  paths  as  ye  go. 
Kindred  and  strangers 

Are  mourners  to-day; 
Gently — so  gently, 

Oh,  bear  her  away! 

So  have  ye  buried  her, 

Up!  and  depart. 
To  life  and  to  duty 

With  undismayed  heart; 


74  THE  IMMORTAL  SEVEN 

Fear  not,  for  the  love 

Of  the  stranger  will  keep 
The  casket  that  lies 

In  the  rock  of  the  deep. 

Mrs.  Judson's  home  church  stands  in  the  shire-town 
of  a  county  that  has  more  people  in  it  than  the  entire 
State  of  Vermont  and  four  times  as  much  wealth.  This 
First  Baptist  Church  in  Salem  is  admirably  located  on 
grounds  that  join  the  three  court-houses  of  Essex  County. 
In  architectural  correctness  and  beauty,  one  of  them, 
"  being  chiefly  Grecian,  may  be  ranked  with  the  best 
edifices  in  our  country.  It  would  have  been  a  worthy 
specimen  of  taste  even  in  the  age  and  city  of  Pericles.,, 
Here  on  the  grounds  of  this  church  Dr.  J.  Ackerman 
Coles,  of  New  York,  has  erected  a  flagstaff  which  towers 
like  a  son  of  Anak.  It  has  the  appearance  of  having  been 
produced  by  nature  to  show  mankind  what  height  a  tree 
can  attain  in  favorable  soil  and  in  a  congenial  climate 
with  no  enemy  to  lay  his  axe  at  its  root.  It  is  a  stem 
from  Oregon,  such  as  is  to  be  erected  with  pride  at  the 
Panama  exhibition.  In  front  of  the  church  is  Federal 
Street,  after  which  was  named  by  the  author,  General 
Oliver,  the  famous  tune  "  Federal  Street/'  which  has 
been  sung  not  only  in  every  city  in  the  land,  but  when- 
ever any  little  home  missionary  church  on  the  vast 
prairies  beyond  the  great  rivers  of  the  West  rings  its 
Sabbath  morning  bells,  "  Federal  Street "  is  used  in 
raising  the  song  of  praise  to  the  Triune  God.  From  this 
staff  broke  out  into  the  air  our  national  banner,  twelve 
feet  by  twenty  feet  nine  inches,  with  the  full  forty-eight 
stars.  When  Commodore  Perry  entered  the  harbor  of 
Yeddo  in  Japan  he  placed  the  American  flag  upon  the 
capstan  of  the  ship,  gathered  his  sailors  about  him,  and 
sang  the  Old  Hundredth  Psalm.  We  ought  to  prize 
every  incident  and  association  that  bind  our  nation  and 


J.   ACKERMAN    COLES,    M.   Dv  LL.   D. 


THROUGH   DEATH   TO   LIFE  OF  POWER  75 

our  nation's  banner  to  the  sanctities  of  our  holy  religion. 
"  Mine  eyes  have  seen  the  glory  of  the  coming  of  the 
Lord."  Scan  the  words.  Observe  the  religious  note. 
Does  this  "Battle  Hymn  of  the  Republic"  savor  of 
patriotism  or  religion,  or  of  them  jointly? 

In  line  of  review,  when  passing  before  the  President  of 
the  United  States,  or  the  chief  executive  of  the  common- 
wealth, the  flag  is  received  with  a  greater  honor  and  distinc- 
tion than  is  accorded  to  any  human  being  on  the  face  of 
the  earth.  With  uncovered  heads  it  is  received,  because  it 
stands  for  the  majesty  of  law  and  for  the  will  of  the  peo- 
ple. Those  who  have  seen  the  colors  presented  to  a  regi- 
ment will  remember  that,  as  a  distinction  of  honor,  with 
martial  music  the  flag  is  escorted  to  the  parade-grounds 
between  two  platoons  of  soldiers.  In  front  of  the  line,  it 
is  received  at  "  present  arms "  by  the  entire  regiment, 
the  highest  honor  that  can  be  given  in  military  expression. 
It  is  the  glorious  ensign  which  has  gone  before  us  like 
Bethlehem's  star  before  the  shepherds.  It  is  a  standard 
not  found  on  exhibition  in  any  war-museum  of  the 
Old  World  as  a  trophy  captured  in  battle.  It  is  not  the 
red  flag  of  anarchy,  nor  the  black  flag  that  fights  to  death 
and  gives  no  quarter;  least  of  all  do  we  show  a  white 
flag  with  its  loss  of  spirit,  absence  of  principle,  peace  at 
any  terms,  surrender.  It  is  the  most  graceful,  beautiful 
banner  in  all  the  world.  It  represents  the  greatest  sacri- 
fices, the  most  striking  providences  ever  exhibited  in  any 
country.  Carried  in  1777  by  Washington's  army,  it  shook 
out  its  matchless  beauty  to  the  breeze  when  he  repulsed 
Cornwallis  on  the  banks  of  the  Assumpsic.  It  witnessed 
Burgoyne's  surrender  at  Saratoga.  It  is  "  Old  Glory," 
being  first  so  named  by  a  man  from  Salem,  Capt.  William 
Driver,  and,  meeting  with  popular  favor,  the  name  has 
followed  the  flag  into  every  port  of  the  civilized  world. 
"  Show   the   flag "   was   Dewey's   admonition   to   Capt. 


j6  THE   IMMORTAL   SEVEN 

C.  L.  Hopper.    "  Thou  hast  given  a  banner  to  them  that 
fear  Thee  that  it  may  be  displayed  because  of  the  truth." 

Up  with  our  banner  bright, 
Sprinkled  with  starry  light, 
Spread  its  fair  emblem  from  mountain  and  shore. 

"  In  the  name  of  our  God  we  have  set  up  our  banner." 

On  a  level  with  the  eyes  of  people  the  flagpole  bears 
this  inscription: 

Presented  to  the 

First  Baptist  Church 

By 

J.  Ackerman  Coles,  M.  D.,  LL.  D. 

1913 

To  mark  Centennial 

Of  the   Organization 

In  this  church  of  the  first 

Foreign  Missionary  Society 

Among  Baptists  of  America 

First  Paid  Secretary 

Being  Pastor  Lucius  Bolles,  D.  D. 

To  Whom 

Adoniram  Judson, 

On  becoming  a  Baptist,  wrote, 

"Under  these  circumstances 

I  look  to  you." 

And  in  memory  of 

Sarah  Hall 

A  talented,  beautiful  member  of  this 

church,  who  became  Mrs.  Judson 

The  Golden  Gate 

Reviewing  the  field  from  a  Pisgah  height,  we  find  that 
the  pioneer  work  is  now  accomplished  among  the  awa- 
kened nations.  Foundations  are  laid.  It  was  Doctor  Jud- 
son's  earliest  wish  that  he  might  raise  the  standard  of  the 
cross  in  some  chief  city  of  oriental  heathenism,  and  he 
sought  to  establish  himself  at  Rangoon — a  "  city  wholly 
given  to  idolatry."    Three  years  after  his  arrival  there  he 


IM MANUEL   BAPTIST   CHURCH,    RANGOON 


THROUGH    DEATH    TO    LIFE   OF    POWER  JJ 

speaks  of  it  as  a  "  most  wretched  place."  But  it  is 
called  "  The  Golden  Gate,"  and  so  it  has  proved  to  be  for 
all  Burma.  The  Immanuel  Baptist  Church,  sufficiently 
large  and  attractive  to  be  an  ornament  in  any  city,  is  now 
a  strong  Christian  organization.  The  Rangoon  Mission 
numbers  to-day  about  one  hundred  and  sixty  churches, 
eleven  thousand  members,  with  over  six  hundred  acces- 
sions last  year.  By  reason  of  that  which  Judson  kindled 
by  a  dim  taper,  ready  to  be  extinguished  by  a  breath, 
the  people  that  walked  in  darkness  have  seen  a  great 
light.  In  commemoration  of  an  event  which  proved  so 
propitious  for  Burma,  taking  for  a  model  the  beautiful 
colonial  cupola  of  the  old  Tabernacle  Church,  through 
which  in  the  initial  days  passed  and  repassed  the  eager 
feet  which  were  to  be  bound  for  the  sake  of  the  Lord 
Jesus,  Dr.  J.  Ackerman  Coles  in  a  moment  of  happy 
inspiration  has  undertaken  to  erect  at  Rangoon,  the 
capital  of  Burma,  which  is  the  largest  of  the  British 
Provinces  in  India,  four  times  greater  than  all  New  Eng- 
land, "  The  Tower  of  Salem." 

The  Tozver  of  Peace 

Its  form  is  an  elaborate  campanile,  and  in  it  will  be 
placed  Westminster  chimes,  which  may  be  heard  under 
favorable  conditions  at  a  very  great  distance.  The  peal 
in  the  Metropolitan  Tower,  New  York,  has  frequently 
been  heard  by  voyagers  at  sea  beyond  Sandy  Hook,  and 
yet  so  soft  are  the  tones  that  they  are  listened  to  with 
pleasure  by  visitors  to  the  observatory  gallery,  one  story 
below  their  location.  The  arrangement  of  the  notes  was 
first  introduced  over  a  century  ago  in  St.  Mary's,  Cam- 
bridge, England,  from  an  air  which  is  said  to  have  been 
composed  by  Handel.  It  was  copied  later  for  the  Houses 
of  Parliament,  Westminster.  Four  notes  are  struck  at 
the  first  quarter,  eight  at  the  second,  twelve  at  the  third, 


78 


THE   IMMORTAL   SEVEN 


and  sixteen  at  the  hour,  fol- 
lowed by  the  full  hour  stroke 
on  the  largest  bell,  which 
weighs  a  thousand  pounds. 
The  iron  staircase,  the  clock 
with  its  four  dials,  everything 
which  goes  into  the  cam- 
panile, except  the  brick  of 
which  the  walls  are  built, 
will  be  assembled  in  this 
country  and  transported.  The 
changes  of  the  century  are 
incidentally  exhibited  by  the 
fact  that  the  generous  donor 
can  discuss,  select,  arrange, 
and  order  everything  into 
place  by  the  use  of  his  office 
telephone. 

We  may  judge  a  man  by 
what  he  loves  and  honors  and 
lavishes  his  money  to  embel- 
lish. Giving  hath  a  divinity 
all  its  own.  "The  Lord"— 
and  the  same  may  be  said  of 
each  of  us — "  loveth  a  cheer- 
ful giver."  1 

Their  Race  is  Run 

The  last  name  to  be  starred 
in    the     sun-bright    list    is 


mwjKBover.Arebtteet;  1  My  Dear  Doctor  Hill:  I  have 
read  your  interesting  article,  entitled 
"  The  Immortal  Seven."  The  frontispiece  of  the  old  Tabernacle  Church 
of  Salem  suggests  a  facsimile  reproduction  of  the  belfry  and  tower  of  the 
old  Tabernacle  Church  through  which  Judson  and  his  four  companions 
passed,  to  and  from  their  ordination,  February  6,  1812.  If  such  a  memorial 
should  prove  to  be  acceptable  to  the  building  committee  at  Boston,  I  would 
gladly  bear  the  expense  of  the  undertaking.  I  am,  yours  truly,  J.  Acker- 
man  Coles. 


THROUGH    DEATH    TO   LIFE  OF   POWER  79 

Samuel  Nott,  a  graduate  of  Union  College,  nephew  of 
its  famous  president,  Eliphalet  Nott,  from  whom  thirty- 
five  hundred  graduates  received  their  diplomas.  Samuel 
Nott  returned  home  from  India  in  1815  by  reason  of 
physical  infirmity,  but  lived  about  as  many  years  after 
the  ordination  at  Salem  as  five  of  the  others,  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Newell,  the  first  Mrs.  Judson,  Gordon  Hall,  and 
Luther  Rice,  together.  He  illustrates  the  principle,  that 
it  is  essential  to  longevity  to  learn  by  losing  one's  health 
how  to  keep  it.  Under  such  conditions,  having  once  lost 
his  health,  Professor  Park  lived  to  be  ninety,  and  Doc- 
tor Storrs,  of  Braintree,  to  be  eighty.  There  was  some 
hesitation  about  settling  Doctor  Prince,  pastor  in  Salem 
of  the  First  Church,  on  account  of  the  delicate  health 
which  would  probably  shorten  his  life,  but  he  survived 
to  bury  every  parishioner  present  at  his  ordination.  A 
glass  dish  will  last  as  long  as  an  iron  one  if  you  take 
care  of  it.  Mary,  always  the  most  delicate  member  of 
the  Hasseltine  family,  out  of  which  Mrs.  Judson  came, 
outlived  all  the  household.  All  about  us  are  persons  who 
have  often  met  Nott  and  talked  with  him.  He  lived  until 
the  year  of  the  opening  of  the  Suez  Canal,  and  died 
at  the  age  of  eighty-one  during  Grant's  administration  as 
President  of  the  United  States. 


A  PROPHET  MIGHTY  IN  WORD  AND  DEED 


V 

A  PROPHET  MIGHTY  IN   WORD  AND  DEED 

HOW  near  we  are  to  the  first  foreign  missionaries! 
At  festivals  in  the  Tabernacle  Church  Miss  Susan 
S.  Driver  sometimes  sits  in  the  same  relative  position 
that  her  mother  occupied  at  the  famous  ordination.  Dr. 
Edward  Judson,  a  son  of  Adoniram,  is  to-day  the  pastor 
of  the  Judson  Memorial  Church  on  Washington  Square 
in  New  York.  On  April  20,  1913,  he  baptized  his  older 
brother,  Henry,  who  was  ten  years  old  when  their 
father  died.  Adoniram  B.  Judson,  M.  D.,  a  third  son  of 
the  missionary,  is  a  distinguished  surgeon  in  New  York, 
who,  with  characteristic  benevolent  spirit,  has  made  a 
specialty  of  the  treatment  of  crippled  children,  and  has 
developed  real  genius  in  the  use  of  mechanical  appliances 
for  that  purpose.  The  Boston  Public  Library  contains 
twenty-two  publications  from  his  pen. 

In  buying  coal,  many  of  us  in  Salem  have  dealt  with 
a  man  with  whom  we  have  sat  in  church  for  years, 
who  remembered  Judson  perfectly,  and  he  has  given 
us  some  of  our  most  vivid  impressions  of  him.  A  gen- 
tleman writes  that  he  heard  this  pioneer  missionary  preach 
in  Plymouth,  and  that  Judson's  sister  showed  him,  at  the 
Judson  mansion,  the  first  copy  of  the  Bible  printed  in 
Burmese,  which  he  had  sent  her  from  Asia.  This  gen- 
tleman was  a  lad  of  thirteen  in  Plymouth  when  the 
father  of  Judson  died.  Another,  a  minister,  is  proud  to 
state  that  he  was  born  in  the  year  in  which  the  famous 
ordination  took  place.  When  spending  vacations  in  Plym- 
outh, the  author  of  this  book  has  noted  the  presence  of 

83 


84  THE   IMMORTAL   SEVEN 

Judson's  sister,  who  outlived  her  brother,  has  met  two 
residents  of  the  place  who  had  talked  with  a  man  who 
knew  one  of  the  "  Mayflower  "  Pilgrims.  How  near  we 
are  to  the  original  exhibitions  of  moral  grandeur  when 
the  initial  enthusiasts  kindled  in  New  England  their 
strange  fire! 

Judson  himself  was  spared  for  many  years  to  keep 
fresh  in  all  minds  the  age  of  sacrifice,  devotion,  and  the 
simple  beginnings  of  history  of  foreign  missions.  His 
life  was  a  bond  between  a  dream  and  its  embodiment, 
between  a  prayer  and  its  answer.  Marvelous  man,  this ! 
People  did  not  wait  until  his  death  to  anoint  him  with 
appreciation.  They  felt  the  unspoken  claim  of  his  worth, 
as  their  attention  was  drawn  to  behold  him,  glowing  with 
apostolic  ardor,  standing  alone  in  Burma,  absolutely  de- 
tached on  missionary  ground  from  all  those  associated 
with  him  in  the  beginnings  of  his  work.  He  was  a  great 
personality;  there  is  a  beauty  of  loftiness  in  him  that  no 
pencil  can  draw.  He  is  on  a  level  always  with  the 
greatest.  Nobody  ever  doubted  his  ability.  In  all  Chris- 
tendom his  name  has  become  one  of  the  best  known. 
Never  since  the  days  of  the  apostles  had  the  world  wit- 
nessed a  brighter  example  of  unwavering  faith  and 
steadfast  consecration  to  truth  and  duty.  Once  embarked 
on  his  pioneer  undertakings  he  never  flinched.  No  man 
has  laid  on  God's  altar  a  more  complete  sacrifice.  He 
was  a  kind  of  first-fruits  of  the  American  churches. 

A  Missionary  Levee 

Like  General  Grant,  the  valiant  soldier  of  the  Cross, 
the  death-defying  hero,  scarred  and  battered  by  his  many 
battles  with  Apollyon  in  carrying  the  very  Gibraltar  of 
paganism,  made  his  triumphal  return  to  his  native  coun- 
try. The  news  of  his  arrival  in  Boston,  October  15,  1845, 
spread  through  the  city  and  produced  everywhere  a  stir 


A   PROPHET    MIGHTY   IN    WORD   AND   DEED  85 

of  emotion.  There  was  the  keenest  desire  to  see  the 
storied  hero  of  faith.  The  formidableness  of  the  dif- 
ficulties, the  portentousness  of  the  discouragements  en- 
countered and  overcome,  centered  all  eyes  upon  him  and 
opened  wide  to  h"im  the  doors  of  all  hearts,  and  he  was 
received  almost  with  acclamation.  It  was  a  great,  unex- 
ampled demonstration  of  popular  feeling  too  strong  to 
be  repressed.  A  whole  generation  had  grown  up  familiar 
with  the  story  of  his  labors  and  sufferings,  not  one  of 
whom  had  seen  his  face.  He  was  not  known  by  personal 
appearance  even  to  the  members  of  the  board  that  sup- 
ported him.  They  viewed  him  as  men  may  have  looked 
upon  Daniel  after  he  had  emerged  unharmed  from  the 
den  of  lions.  Some  who  talked  with  him  told  him  that 
while  he  was  wearing  his  fetters  and  facing  his  appointed 
executioner,  prayer  was  being  made  without  ceasing  of 
the  church  unto  God  for  him.  His  movements  were 
chronicled  in  all  the  papers  and  the  account  of  his 
triumphal  return  was  spread  on  electric  wings  to  the  re- 
motest parts  of  the  land.  Spontaneous  tributes  of  hom- 
age, love,  and  veneration  awaited  him  in  every  city  and 
village  that  he  visited.  He  thus  secured  what  he  did  not 
directly  strive  to  gain.  The  largest  edifice  would  be  filled 
to  overflowing.  Not  a  seat  in  any  pew,  not  a  place  in 
all  the  aisles,  not  the  farthest  corner  above  or  below 
would  remain  unoccupied.  When  he  was  introduced 
there  was  a  thrill  of  joy,  and  by  reason  of  obvious  sym- 
pathy and  reverence  on  the  part  of  the  hearers  they 
were  hushed  into  the  most  deathlike  stillness,  that  not 
a  syllable  should  be  lost  to  any  ear.  On  the  Friday  eve- 
ning after  landing  he  was  presented  to  an  immense 
audience,  gathered  only  by  verbal  notice  to  avoid  a 
crush,  in  the  Bowdoin  Square  Church  in  Boston,  where 
Doctor  Sharp  interpreted  the  deep  interest  and  appre- 
ciation of  the  assembled  throngs. 


86  THE   IMMORTAL   SEVEN 

Unexpectedly  a  most  vibrantly  responsive  chord  was 
touched,  which  electrified  the  tense  crowd.  While  Doc- 
tor Hague  was  speaking,  a  stranger  was  urging  his  way 
up  the  aisle  from  the  most  distant  part  of  the  house,  and 
ascended  the  pulpit  and  was  warmly  embraced  by  Doctor 
Judson  with  manifest  affection  and  grateful  joy.  It 
was  a  dramatic  moment.  Two  early  associates,  all  that 
were  now  left  of  the  Sacred  Seven,  who  a  few  months 
before  had  never  expected  to  meet  on  earth,  were  af- 
forded the  unutterable  pleasure  of  taking  each  other's 
hand  in  the  presence  of  that  cloud  of  witnesses.  It  was 
as  if  the  first  interviews  of  heaven  had  been  anticipated. 
The  scene  that  follows  is  beyond  description,  as  tears 
dimmed  the  eyes  of  many  who  beheld  the  moving  sight. 
Who  could  this  man  be?  It  was  Rev.  Samuel  Nott,  the 
other  survivor  of  the  illustrious  band  sent  out  into  a  land 
of  experiment  when  no  pagan  nation  abroad  had  ever 
heard  of  a  Redeemer  from  American  lips.  Thirty-three 
years  between  this  meeting  and  the  last!  And  what 
years!  What  experiences,  what  recollections!  They 
have  changed,  and  the  whole  world  has  changed  with 
them. 

The  Sacred  Chamber 

When  Judson  left  his  father's  house  in  Plymouth  for 
his  last  journey  to  Burma,  his  sister,  Abigail,  had  the 
front  door  of  the  house  boarded  up,  saying  that  no  one 
was  to  enter  by  that  portal  until  her  brother's  return. 
His  sister  also  closed  the  room  in  which  he  slept,  and 
never  allowed  it  to  be  opened  or  cared  for.  It  was  to 
remain  untouched,  for  him  to  find  it  as  he  left  it,  but 
the  sight  of  it  never  blessed  his  eyes.  She  was  a  beautiful 
old  lady,  unmarried,  with  gray  hair  worn  in  curls,  and 
these  would  wave  about  her  face  as  she  said,  with  tears 
in  her  eyes :  "  My  brother  and  I  had  a  good  deal  to 


A  PROPHET   MIGHTY   IN    WORD  AND  DEED  87 

contend  with,  but  the  Lord  prospered  us  and  took  care 
of  us.  And  my  brother!  my  brother!  Think  what  he 
became !  "  She  drew  attention  to  the  unmeasured  differ- 
ence in  the  outcome  of  her  brother's  life  and  her  own. 
His  name  was  a  praise  in  all  the  churches,  and  his  won- 
derful exploits  were  heralded  to  the  ends  of  the  earth, 
while  she,  his  sister,  a  keeper  at  home,  caretaker  of  her 
father  and  mother,  a  favorite  of  her  renowned  brother, 
and  we  may  presume  his  peer,  unappropriated,  unap- 
plauded,  approaching  the  end  of  her  solitary  career,  has 
only  .the  celebrity  which  membership  in  the  honored 
family  gave  her. 

A  man  in  Plymouth,  becoming  unduly  bold  and  not 
having  the  fear  of  Judson's  sister  before  his  eyes,  unseen 
by  her  opened  the  door  of  the  so-called  "  Sacred  Cham- 
ber." Darkness  was  there,  and  everything  was  decay- 
ing and  turning  to  dust.  It  was  a  symbol  of  the  fact 
that  the  old  is  passing  away.  The  outward  man  perisheth. 
This  lesson  is  borne  in  upon  the  student  of  ancient  things. 
Barring  exceptions,  notable  for  that  reason,  about  once 
in  a  hundred  years  the  earth  is  swept  with  a  clean 
besom.  How  difficult  it  is  for  us  to  orient  ourselves,  and 
become  surrounded  with  the  faces  and  forms  and  atmos- 
phere and  equipment  of  former  days !  The  art  preserva- 
tive was  not  so  freely  used  then  as  now,  which  increases 
our  difficulties. 

A  Clergyman  of  the  Old  School 

We  have,  however,  the  account-book,  which  cost  "  a 
shilling  and  eight  pence,"  of  the  elder  Judson,  the  mis- 
sionary's father,  which  gives,  among  other  items : 

Expense  of  my  two  sons'  education,  gifts,  etc.,  Adoniram, 
$950;  Elnathan,  $1,000.  In  the  account  above  I  did  not  charge 
Adoniram  for  a  horse  which  I  gave  him,  which  horse  he  sold 
for  $50,  which  added  makes  $1,000.    These  two  sums  are  taken 


88  THE   IMMORTAL   SEVEN 

from  accounts  of  bills,  moneys  paid,  and  given  to  my  two  sons 
for  their  education  and  other  expense;  besides  their  board  at 
home  and  clothing.  As  Nabey  (Abigail  B.),  my  daughter,  has 
not  been  at  much  expense  abroad  for  her  education  and  has 
lived  at  home  to  assist  and  economize  in  the  family,  I  now 
give  her  $800  in  State  bank  for  her  own  use  and  improvement. 
And  she  has  $200  in  said  bank  with  her  mother's,  which  makes 
$1,000.  For  the  future,  while  she  is  at  home  I  will  give  her 
board  and  half  a  dollar  per  week.    Jan.  1,  1814. 

Steering  by  the  Divine  Compass 

The  older  son  who  sold  his  horse,  according  to  the 
Plymouth  record,  married  a  young  school-teacher  and 
sailed  for  heathen  lands  where  their  first  son  was  named 
Roger  Williams;  and  this  is  another  line  of  connection 
between  the  Judsons  and  Salem,  for  Roger  Williams  and 
Adoniram  Judson  both  went  out  from  Salem  to  do  their 
great  work.  They  both  represent  ideas  struggling  for 
mastery.  They  both  identify  their  fortune  with  the 
success  of  a  principle.  Impelled  to  go  forth  as  its 
heralds,  they  are  both  willing  to  conquer  as  its  champions 
or  die  as  its  martyrs.  The  path  of  duty  is  as  plain  to 
them  as  a  call  from  heaven.  It  is  as  clear  as  a  voice 
from  the  skies.  No  angel's  message,  no  vision  of  the 
night,  no  new  revelation,  was  required.  They  were 
treading  in  the  footsteps  of  inspired  apostles  and  were 
walking  in  the  light  that  beamed  from  the  oracles  of 
God.  Roger  Williams,  the  bold  and  steady  declaimer 
against  the  union  of  the  sword  and  the  surplice,  stood 
for  the  doctrine  that  every  man  may  be  supposed  to  have 
a  conscience  of  his  own,  and  that  his  right  to  religious 
liberty  is  an  essential  part  of  Christianity.  Tracing  this  idea 
to  its  source  as  we  trace  the  mighty  Hudson  to  a  spring 
in  the  Adirondacks,  we  come  to  the  house  still  stand- 
ing in  Salem,  built  before  1635,  in  which  Roger  Williams 
lived.    It  was  once  supposed  that  we  had  still  standing 


A   PROPHET    MIGHTY   IN    WORD   AND  DEED  89 

the  very  church  in  which  he  preached.  Providence  is  the 
second  largest  city  in  New  England;  in  tracing  our  idea 
we  go  right  back  over  the  entire  history  of  that  city 
and  show  the  dwelling  from  which  Roger  Williams, 
"  Teacher  "  in  out  first  church,  made  his  way  to  freedom 
with  no  guide  save  a  pocket  compass,  which  his  descend- 
ants still  exhibit,  and  with  no  reliance  but  the  friendly 
disposition  of  the  Indians. 

The  need  of  the  church,  then  as  now,  was  for  leaders. 
Not  having  occupied  a  subordinate  position  in  college, 
having  an  intense  love  of  superiority,  even  when  it  had 
to  be  honestly  earned,  having  talents  of  the  highest  order, 
a  kind  of  ardor  in  the  blood,  a  certain  dash  and  brilliancy, 
by  the  elastic  force  of  his  mind  Judson  becomes  a  master 
spirit  and  his  lustrous  name  is  forever  written  first  in  the 
peerage  book  of  American  missions.  As  the  elder  Judson 
went  to  Yale,  he  would  have  liked  to  send  his  sons  there, 
but  for  economy's  sake,  it  is  supposed,  as  the  distance  on 
horseback  was  much  less  to  Providence,  he  sent  them  to 
Brown  instead  of  New  Haven ;  the  necessity  of  economy 
is  shown  in  the  same  account-book,  where  the  first  year 
he  is  paid  $6  per  Sabbath  for  34  Sabbaths,  $204 ;  nor  was 
he  helped  much  by  wedding  fees:  "Feb.  20,  1804,  $1.50 
marriage  money."  Adoniram  graduated  at  Brown,  as 
Gordon  Hall  did  at  Williams,  as  valedictorian,  and,  having 
the  highest  honors  in  his  class,  was  offered  a  tutorship  at 
Brown  as  Hall  was  at  Williams.  On  horseback,  two  days 
before  his  marriage,  five  days  before  the  ordination, 
young  Judson  left  his  father's  house  in  Plymouth,  being 
accompanied  as  far  as  Boston  by  his  brother,  Elnathan, 
to  whom  he  was  much  attached. 

The  Father  of  the  Man 

That  leading  paramount  influence,  that  missionary  in- 
stinct for  which  he  was  distinguished,  asserting  itself 


90  THE   IMMORTAL  SEVEN 

on  the  way  as  they  were  passing  some  trees  by  the  road- 
side, he  prevailed  on  his  younger  brother  to  dismount 
and  kneel  while  he  prayed  for  his  conversion,  which 
prayer  it  gave  him  great  pleasure  to  come  to  know  was 
graciously  answered.  Judson  was  born  in  a  house  that 
many  of  us  have  often  visited  on  Main  Street  in  Maiden, 
opposite  the  historic  Bell  Rock,  where  in  Maiden's  early 
history  the  church  bell  was  suspended  from  poles  that 
were  crossed  like  heavy  shears.  Bell  Rock  is  now  a 
distinct  part  of  Maiden,  like  Castle  Hill  in  Salem,  or 
Wyoma  or  Glenmere  in  Lynn.  Judson  knew  Salem  well, 
as  seven  years  of  his  boyhood  were  spent  in  Wenham 
near-by,  where  his  father  was  pastor. 

A  Corner  in  India 

Michelangelo,  in  a  well-known  picture,  makes  one  of 
his  figures  stand  on  a  stone  in  order  to  give  him  greater 
prominence.  The  biographical  method,  so  widely  used  in 
study,  has  a  similar  practical  effect.  In  each  missionary 
period,  some  heaven-sent  leader,  like  Francis  of  Assisi, 
or  John  Eliot,  or  David  Livingstone,  occupies  the  fore- 
ground, and  we  look  at  the  situation  in  terms  of  him. 
We  have  had  our  Lincoln  revival,  and  Napoleon  revival, 
and  Grant  revival,  and  George  Washington  revival,  when 
the  notable  facts  of  their  whole  respective  epochs,  all 
of  which  they  saw  and  much  of  which  they  were,  were 
given  attractive  restatement.  We  see  Judson  rejoicing 
over  his  little  flock.  What  is  true  of  him  is  typical  of 
the  other  missionaries.  Judson  remained  seated  while 
preaching  and  knelt  for  prayer.  This  is  the  custom  of 
a  teacher  in  the  East.  "  And  seeing  the  multitude,"  the 
Great  Teacher,  "  went  up  into  a  mountain  and  when  he 
had  sat  down  " — his  posture  became  a  sign  of  the  begin- 
ning of  formal  address.  Though,  as  we  shall  see,  Jud- 
son's  public  work  was  characterized  by  real  oratory,  we 


A   PROPHET    MIGHTY   IN    WORD   AND  DEED  91 

ought  not  to  think  of  him  as  "occupying  a  pulpit." 
There  is  in  his  chapel  no  such  feature.  At  the  head  of 
the  aisle  is  a  platform,  eight  or  ten  inches  high.  Upon 
it  is  an  armchair  beside  a  plain  table.  Like  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount,  whfch  can  be  read  in  fifteen  minutes  and 
contains  sixty  distinct  pictorial  images,  an  average  of 
four  to  a  minute,  Judson's  sermons  abound  in  word- 
pictures,  which  take  the  taste  of  the  Eastern  mind.  When 
he  preached  "  every  hearer  sat  motionless,  every  eye  was 
fixed  immovably  upon  the  preacher,  and  every  counte- 
nance seemed  to  change  with  every  varied  expression  of 
sentiment;  now  beaming  forth  joy  as  though  some  joyous 
news  from  the  other  world  had  just  reached  them, 
which  before  had  never  gladdened  their  hearts ;  now  de- 
picting a  feeling  of  anxiety,  as  though  their  immortal  all, 
or  that  of  their  friends,  was  at  stake;  and  next,  show- 
ing a  deep  solemnity,  as  though  standing  before  their 
final  Judge/'  "  Though  I  did  not  know,"  said  a  visitor, 
Mr.  Vinton,  "  the  meaning  of  a  single  sentence  he  uttered, 
still  my  attention  was  never  more  closely  riveted  on  any 
sermon  I  ever  heard.  It  was  impossible  to  escape  the 
conviction  that  his  whole  soul  was  in  his  work." 

God  Has  His  Dwelling  with  Men 

If  the  joy  of  utterance  is  exceeded,  it  is  when  a 
Christian  worker  hears  that  one  of  his  converts  has  won 
a  convert.  He  begins,  as  Napoleon  said,  to  see  himself  in 
history.  When  all  the  converts  in  heathendom  taken  to- 
gether were  a  little  flock,  when  Moung  Ing,  the  first 
Burman  evangelist,  after  a  tour  of  seven  months  takes 
an  evening  to  tell  of  his  adventures,  Judson  cannot  con- 
ceal his  gratification.  It  is  the  same  in  kind  with  our 
Saviour's  joy  as  the  disciples  make  a  report  after  their 
trial  mission.  So  the  church  at  Antioch  listened  to  Paul 
and  Barnabas  when  they  rehearsed  all  that  God  had  done 


92  THE   IMMORTAL   SEVEN 

with  them.  In  1828,  Judson,  after  laboring  many  years 
with  but  little  success,  hears  of  the  Karens  far  in  the 
interior.  He  finds  Ko  Tha  Byu,  a  slave  fifty  years  of 
age,  who  as  a  youth  had  been  dull,  vicious,  and  brutal, 
and  as  a  man  had  murdered  thirty  men  with  his  own 
hand.  Judson  paid  his  ransom  and  took  him  to  his  own 
home.  This  blasphemer  was  soon  sitting  clothed  and 
in  his  right  mind,  his  darkened  understanding  lightened 
by  the  story  of  the  Cross.  He  was  baptized,  and  going 
immediately  to  his  own  nation  to  preach,  found  a  people 
ready  for  the  Lord.  For  twelve  years  he  made  itinerating 
tours,  of  from  one  week  to  six  months,  among  the  six 
hundred  thousand  Karens.  An  aggressive  type  of  the 
spiritual  life  being  used,  the  fires  on  missionary  altars 
burned  brightly,  and  whole  villages  were  converted,  and 
soon  there  were  tens  of  thousands  of  native  Christians 
besides  those  added  to  the  church  of  the  redeemed  in 
heaven. 

Judson 's  Missionary  Theory 

With  Judson  evangelism  was  not  displaced  by  educa- 
tion. Indications  abound  that  he  was  raised  up  by  Provi- 
dence, not  merely  to  stand  first  in  order  of  time  and  in 
preeminence  of  ability,  but  to  set  the  step,  to  give  the 
keynote,  and  to  project  in  about  the  right  proportions 
the  missionary  idea.  Subordinating  other  matters,  Doc- 
tor Wayland  makes  of  his  memoir  of  Doctor  Judson  a 
distinctively  missionary  classic;  the  thing  worth  while, 
the  real  lessons  of  the  life,  the  main  contribution  to  the 
world  by  the  illustrious  subject  of  his  sketch,  is  the  theory 
and  practice  of  operating  a  mission. 

There  are  two  theories  of  missions,  just  as  there  are 
two  methods  of  foreign  travel.  A  large  company  of  con- 
genial tourists  may  journey  together  abroad  and  furnish 
company   for  each  other  and  have   their  exchange  of 


A  PROPHET   MIGHTY   IN    WORD  AND  DEED  93 

ideas  among  themselves,  or  a  man  may  go  unattended 
into  the  byways  of  other  countries  and  meet  the  people 
directly  at  every  turn  and  learn  much  about  them,  and 
they  on  their  part  may  acquire  something  of  his  spirit. 
Judson  stood  for  more  of  directness  in  everything.  He 
was  exactly  fitted  for  his  field.  The  first  ten  years  in 
any  new  mission  are  of  inestimable  importance  in  deter- 
mining the  methods  and  the  future  of  the  work.  As  his 
supporters  knew  a  time  when  there  was  a  missionary, 
but  no  missionary  society  and  no  missionary  policy, 
the  conditions  made  his  life  luminous  with  lessons,  not 
only  touching  his  errand  of  love  to  grim  Burma,  but 
also  pertaining  to  the  manner  of  doing  the  Master's  busi- 
ness anywhere.  He  believed  in  the  rapid  multiplication 
of  centers  of  influence  as  opposed  to  centralization  in  a 
few  large  missionary  stations. 

From  the  first  he  developed  in  the  natives  the  capacity 
of  self-government,  and  discerned  every  sign  of  progress 
with  no  less  pleasure  than  the  mother  notices  her  child  as 
it  attempts  to  stand  or  walk,  and  ventures  on  little  inde- 
pendent journeys  of  a  yard  or  two  without  her  guiding 
and  supporting  hand.  With  what  joy  he  must  have  sat  in 
the  house  of  God,  surrounded  by  Christian  natives !  As 
soon  as  three  or  four  disciples  could  be  collected  at  one 
point,  every  question  pertaining  to  accessions  was  brought 
before  them,  and  the  decision  was  according  to  the  judg- 
ment of  the  body.  With  the  fondness  and  pride  of  a 
parent's  heart,  he  mentions  the  fact  that  a  little  church  of 
five  or  six  members  would  sometimes  reject  a  candidate 
with  whom  he  was  himself  very  well  satisfied.  He  would 
by  tact  try  to  bring  the  case  before  the  church  a  second 
time,  but  never  overruled  their  action.  The  pagans  came 
at  length  to  understand  that  a  prophet  was  among  them. 
In  the  world's  great  conquests,  vision  and  power  have  met 
the  possibilities  of  each  new  era.    It  was  so  with  Shake- 


94  THE   IMMORTAL   SEVEN 

speare  in  letters,  Michelangelo  in  art,  and  Napoleon  in 
artillery  and  in  the  quick  massing  of  men  at  the  strategic 
point.  Judson  was  believed  to  possess  these  gifts  of 
vision  and  power  as,  in  missions,  no  one  before  him  had 
disclosed  them,  and  there  are  many  indications  that  this 
is  a  deserved  tribute.  The  forces  that  were  working 
unseen  beneath  the  surface  in  his  day  found  expression 
through  him,  and  this  lifted  him  into  prominence  and 
made  his  influence  permanent.  He  was  conscious  of  a 
message  to  be  delivered  as  well  as  of  a  command  to  be 
obeyed.  All  of  his  faculties  seemed  to  say,  "  Yes  "  to  his 
occupation.  He  was  a  born  missionary.  No  other  voca- 
tion could  have  called  out  all  his  talents.  Both  grace 
and  apostleship  are  illustrated  in  his  life.  On  his  own 
thirty-ninth  birthday,  Byron  wrote: 

My  days  are  in  the  yellow  leaf, 
The  fruits  and  flowers  of  love  are  gone, 
The  worm,  the  canker,  and  the  grief, 
Are  mine  alone. 

On  his  death-bed  Judson  said :  "  No  man  ever  left 
the  world  with  more  inviting  prospects,  with  brighter 
hopes,  or  warmer  feelings.''  The  world  to-day  pays 
homage  to  his  character  and  achievements  in  somewhat 
the  same  way  that  his  antagonist  in  a  debate  at  Rangoon 
did  to  his  abilities,  when,  on  taking  his  departure,  he 
prostrated  himself,  showing  thus  a  deference  that  a  Bur- 
man  never  publicly  exhibits  except  to  an  acknowledged 
superior. 

His  Name  is  Deathless 

Like  Samuel  J.  Mills,  whom  he  succeeded  in  leader- 
ship, he  died  at  sea  separate  from  his  family.  The 
dinner-table  was  at  the  time  spread  in  the  smaller  cabin 
of  the  ship,  and  the  officers  did  not  know  what  was  pass- 


A   PROPHET   MIGHTY   IN   WORD  AND  DEED  95 

ing  in  the  larger  cabin  till  summoned  to  the  table,  when 
they  gathered  about  the  door  of  the  main  cabin  and 
watched  the  closing  scenes  with  solemn  reverence.  Jud- 
son  had  said  in  Burman  to  Panapah,  a  native  servant  who 
was  with  him,  "  It  is  done,  I  am  going."  When  the 
peaceful  end  came,  the  ship's  officers  stole  softly  from  the 
door,  and  the  neglected  meal  was  left  on  the  table  un- 
tasted.  A  strong  plank  coffin  was  soon  constructed, 
several  buckets  of  sand  were  poured  into  it  to  make  it 
sink,  and  at  eight  o'clock  in  the  evening  the  crew  as- 
sembled, the  larboard  port  was  opened,  and  in  perfect 
silence,  broken  only  by  the  voice  of  the  captain  in  giving 
commands,  all  that  was  mortal  of  the  veteran  warrior 
and  counselor  was  committed  to  a  vast  wandering  grave. 
In  latitude  13  degrees  north,  longitude  93  degrees  east, 
nine  days  after  his  embarkation  and  scarcely  three  days 
out  of  sight  of  the  mountains  of  Burma,  they  lowered 
him  into  his  unquiet  sepulcher  without  a  prayer.  It 
was  thought  that  it  would  be  an  unmeaning  observance  in 
those  surroundings.  As  if  in  anticipation  of  this  par- 
ticular burial  the  psalmist  gives  to  the  sea  a  language 
of  protest  against  such  a  funeral  for  a  man  of  such 
renown.  "  The  floods  lifted  up  their  voice."  They  pro- 
tested, they  uttered  their  plaint,  but  they  will  tell  the 
story  of  what  was  committed  to  them  as  they  visit  every 
coast  inhabited  by  any  branch  of  the  whole  family  of 
man. 

He  died  within  two  weeks  of  bidding  his  wife  adieu, 
yet  she,  left  in  harrowing  uncertainty,  did  not  know  of 
his  death  for  four  months,  and  then  the  news  came  to 
her  indirectly.  Her  life  from  its  beginning  to  its  close 
was  a  continuous  sacrifice  on  the  altar  of  affection.  This 
was  made  ungrudgingly,  uncomplainingly,  almost  uncon- 
sciously. She  was  a  child  of  genius.  Her  writings  as 
Fanny  Forrester  took  the  taste  of  the  public,  and  gave 


96  THE  IMMORTAL  SEVEN 

her  an  uncommon  degree  of  popular  favor,  yet  with  her 
name  on  everybody's  lips  she  speaks  of  feeling  u  so 
alone."  None  yearned  more  intensely  for  affection,  none 
repaid  it  with  a  more  enthusiastic  devotion,  and  when 
her  affection  bade  her  go  forward,  she  never  looked 
back. 

It  seems  that  Judson  had  spoken  of  burial  at  sea,  and 
always  as  though  the  sense  of  freedom,  expansion,  was 
far  pleasanter  than  the  confined  narrow  grave  to  which 
he  had  consigned  so  many  that  he  loved,  and  added  that 
while  his  burial-place  was  a  matter  of  no  real  importance, 
yet  it  was  not  in  human  nature  to  be  without  choice.  It 
had  pleased  God  to  enable  him  to  bear  so  many  testi- 
monies for  him  during  his  life  that  none  were  required 
of  him  as  he  died. 

The  Silent  House 

Everything  in  his  study  was  just  where  he  left  it.  All 
around  were  proof-sheets,  old  manuscript  volumes,  his 
books,  and  papers.  Everything  gave  indication  of  a 
workman  called  away  from  his  unfinished  task.  The 
labor  undertaken  had  been  too  vast  to  be  finished  in  a 
lifetime.  Mr.  Stevens  begins  both  the  dictionary  and 
the  grammar  at  the  point  of  their  incompleteness.  Mrs. 
Judson  points  out  to  him  that  the  last  word  that  Doctor 

Judson  defined  was  and  the  corresponding  initial 

vowel  was >.    Judson  had  made  but  one  request,  that 

there  might  be  made  some  distinct  mark  both  in  the 
dictionary  and  in  the  grammar  where  his  work  ended 
and  the  next  man's  labor  began;  and  what  a  mark  was 
that !  We  look  upon  it  with  awe.  At  work,  death  inter- 
rupted him,  and  his  hand  rested.  It  suggests  Schlegel, 
lecturing  at  Dresden,  commencing  the  sentence,   "  But 

the  consummate  and  perfect  knowledge "  at  this  point 

his  mortal  illness  arrested  his  pen.    It  is  like  the  martyr 


A   PROPHET   MIGHTY   IN    WORD  AND  DEED  9? 

who,  being  called  by  the  executioner,  left  a  sentence 
unfinished.  We  think  of  Whitefield,  broken  with  excess- 
ive labors,  who  said,  "  I  shall  be  better  and  preach  again 
in  a  day  or  two,"  but  died.  The  poet,  long  the  pride  of 
Germany,  was  interrupted  by  death,  and  his  unfinished 
manuscript  was  placed  upon  the  coffin  as  it  was  carried  to 
the  grave.  Raphael  died  of  his  labor  on  "The  Trans- 
figuration," and  the  immortal  work  was  borne  in  pomp 
at  his  funeral. 

The  Marks  of  the  Lord  Jesus 

Judson's  death  was  more  generally  and  deeply  mourned 
than  that  of  any  other  individual  of  his  generation  en- 
gaged in  Christian  work.  "  Had  the  whole  missionary 
work,"  said  Theodore  Parker,  "  resulted  in  nothing  more 
than  the  building  up  of  such  a  character,  it  would  be 
worth  all  it  has  cost."  Certain  apt  utterances  make 
Judson  known  to  those  who  have  never  read  his  life. 
Like  General  Grant  too,  he  could  take  a  thought  of 
gold  and  stamp  it  into  coin  so  that  it  would  pass  current 
among  men.  A  golden  opinion  is  not  sufficient.  It  is  the 
stamp  that  carries  it.  His  reply  to  the  venerable  James 
Loring  in  Boston  will  live  forever.  It  must  have  met 
itself  often  going  many  times  both  ways  around  the 
world.  It  was  one  of  those  inspirations  which  by  a  single 
electric  flash  illumine  the  whole  realm  of  thought.  "  Do 
you  think  the  prospect  bright  for  the  speedy  conversion  of 
the  heathen  ?  "  "  As  bright,"  was  his  prompt  reply,  "  as 
the  promises  of  God."  When  conversions  seemed  to  lag 
and  obstacles  were  encountered  and  a  suggestion  of  fail- 
ure was  indulged,  "  Tell  them  to  wait  a  few  years  and 
they  will  hear  from  us  again."  No  one  can  contemplate 
the  missionary  hero  without  concluding  that  the  muster- 
roll  of  saints  and  worthies  was  not  completed  with  the 
eleventh  chapter  of  Hebrews.    He  bore  in  his  body  the 


98  THE  IMMORTAL  SEVEN 

scars  of  the  Lord  Jesus.  When  his  limbs  were  composed 
in  death,  his  spirit  having  been  convoyed  by  angels,  there 
were  still  upon  them  the  plain  marks  worn  by  his  fetters, 
which  had  changed  his  gait,  so  that  he  had  a  high-stepping 
form  of  walking  which  came  from  his  habit  of  picking 
up  his  feet  when  loaded  with  fourteen  pounds  of  irons. 
We  think  reverently  of  the  tied  hands  of  Jesus,  and  turn 
to  see  Judson  with  his  bound  feet. 

Richard  H.  Dana  used  to  say  that  every  man  ought  at 
least  once  in  his  life  to  look  death  in  the  face.  In  a 
dungeon  which  was  distinctively  a  death-prison,  bound 
with  chains,  at  night  being  "  strung" — his  chains  threaded 
on  a  pole  for  additional  security  to  limit  his  movements — 
Judson  was  again  and  again  brought  directly  face  to 
face  with  his  executioner,  and  being  led  away  to  be  put 
to  death,  was  saved  by  an  angel,  as  we  have  seen. 

Great  Leaders  in  a  Great  Crisis 

He  was  made  a  missionary,  he  tells  us  by  reading 
Claudius  Buchanan's  thrilling  "  Star  in  the  East,"  and 
we  can  say  of  him  that  he  followed  the  star.  The  cele- 
bration of  their  centennial  by  the  Baptists  in  1913  shows 
that  Judson  had  the  force  in  his  own  person  to  produce 
a  reversal  of  the  antecedents  of  history.  An  American 
Baptist  Mission,  as  we  have  seen,  was  organized  by  him 
in  India  before  there  was  one  organized  in  this  country. 
Carey  was  ready  to  go  down  into  the  pit  if  others  would 
hold  the  rope;  but  Judson,  without  any  one  pledged  to 
hold  the  rope,  feeling  his  way  along  where  everything 
had  to  be  created  from  the  ground  up,  originated  the 
entire  Baptist  missionary  history,  starting  it  beyond  the 
seas  whence  it  was  taken  up  in  this  country.  It  is  im- 
possible to  tell  what  would  have  been  the  effect  upon 
American  churches  if  the  first  missionaries  had  been 
either  defeated  or  disheartened.    They  were  schooled  for 


A  PROPHET   MIGHTY   IN;;WORt)  ;ANE>;  I)E£d  90 

their  work  in  trying  times  and  by  extraordinary  experi- 
ences. We  feel  that  Washington  was  ordained  for  a 
special  mission,  that  Lincoln  was  mysteriously  prepared 
to  meet  an  exigency  in  our  national  life  and  in  the  history 
of  a  race.  Luther  was  called  to  precipitate  the  Reforma- 
tion; Calvin,  to  formulate  the  seething  thought  of  the 
religious  world;  Wesley  to  create  a  passion  for  souls; 
Whitefield,  Finney,  and  Moody  to  give  tongues  of  fire 
to  the  doctrines  of  grace.  If  we  wish  to  be  informed 
with  regard  to  the  history  of  a  missionary  movement  or 
of  a  people,  we  find  ourselves  studying  the  lives  and 
character  of  the  leaders. 

A  review  of  the  world's  annals  shows  that  no  race 
ever  reconditioned  itself,  or  became  great  without  lead- 
ers, from  the  times  of  Abraham  and  Joseph  to  that  of 
Moses.  Very  much  of  human  history  turns  upon  the 
question  who  and  what  were  those  who  led  the  way. 
It  was  something  in  them  or  in  their  message  which 
awakened  in  the  natives  of  India  a  desire  to  enter  the 
gate  at  the  head  of  the  way.  So  the  first  missionaries, 
the  Immortal  Seven  sent  from  Salem  to  Asia,  occupy 
a  unique  place  in  our  annals.  Their  names  are  for- 
ever secure  in  our  Hall  of  Fame.  They  were  remark- 
able pioneers.  Their  lives  were  well  timed.  From  these 
beginnings  has  come  the  miracle  of  the  century.  The 
time,  manner,  and  event  had  all  been  Ordered  before- 
hand. The  Cathedral  Tower  clock  of  destiny  struck  at 
a  certain  hour,  and  the  immortals  led  off  sharply  with 
qualifications  not  exceeded  since  apostolic  times.  Blessed 
are  the  men  who  find  their  place  and  fill  it.  They  that 
turn  many  to  righteousness  shall  shine  as  the  brightness 
of  the  firmament  and  as  the   stars   forever   and   ever. 

Honor  to  Salem  that  anointed  them  in  her  house  of 
prayer!  All  honor  to  the  blessed,  fragrant  memory  of 
the  Immortal  Seven,  whose  names  are  in  the  Book  of 


lOf)  '  \-\\     T^E   IMMORTAL   SEVEN 

Life.  Hail  to  the  heralds  of  the  Cross,  who,  to  preach 
the  gospel  in  the  regions  beyond,  entered  a  benighted, 
neglected  country,  and  in  the  name  of  our  God  set  up 
our  banner!  Hail  to  the  missionary  organizations  occa- 
sioned by  themselves,  which  came  to  their  entire  unflinch- 
ing support,  and  without  whose  undergirding,  their  in- 
fluence, that  now  encircles  the  earth  like  a  zone  of 
heavenly  light,  could  not  have  been  shed  abroad ! 

Blessed  pioneers!  Without  precedent,  without  any 
known  lines  of  procedure,  with  full  play  for  originality 
and  formulative  genius,  a  key  to  the  secret  of  stamping 
upon  idolaters  a  true  religious  impress  has  been  found 
and  exhibited  for  the  admiration  of  the  world. 

A  glorious  band,  the  chosen  few 

On  whom  the  Spirit  came; 
Seven  valiant  saints,  their  hope  they  knew, 

And  mocked  the  cross  and  flame. 


They  climbed  the  dizzy  steep  to  heaven, 
Through  peril,  toil,  and  pain ; 

O  God !  to  us  may  grace  be  given 
To  follow  in  their  train ! 


VI 


FROM  THE  CENTENNIAL  PISGAH 


VI 

FROM   THE  CENTENNIAL  PISGAH 

THE  year  1812,  lifted  into  such  prominence  by  the 
inauguration  of  our  world-famous  work  in  a  far 
country  full  of  the  habitations  of  cruelty,  is  now  styled 
Annus  Mirabilis.  By  reason  of  their  issue  some  dates 
tower  like  mountains  above  the  dreary  annals  that  fall 
between.  In  our  Christian  history  this  is  the  range  of 
highest  peaks :  A.  D.  1,  33,  1492,  1620,  1776,  1812,  1863 ; 
the  last  date  precipitated  an  unexampled  work  at  home, 
the  next  earlier  one  brings  distinctly  before  us  those 
whose  record  as  our  advance  guard  will  be  read  to  the 
joy  of  the  angels  in  the  last  day.  Benjamin  Franklin  ex- 
pressed the  wish  that  he  might  return  to  earth  after  one 
hundred  years.  If  that  were  granted  to  Judson  and  his 
early  associates,  what  a  transformation  would  greet  their 
astonished  sight !  Taking  our  stand  on  this  "  hundred- 
storied  height,"  with  a  century  of  missions  and  progress 
in  our  field  of  vision  we  may  see  that,  politically  speaking, 
18 1 2  was  a  doleful  year  the  world  around.  Commerce 
had  been  hunted  and  driven  from  the  seas,  and  the  plow 
was  forsaken  for  the  sword.  The  appeal  was  to  the 
bullet  and  not  the  ballot.  Bayonet  and  saber  and  spur 
were  the  fashion  everywhere.  Outside  of  tiny  Denmark 
peace  had  not  a  square  mile  of  space  that  she  could  call 
her  own.  Our  shipping,  and  we  had  ships  in  those  days, 
was  in  the  cross-fire  between  the  British  and  the  French. 
As  England's  best  generals  and  troops  were  busily  set- 
ting back-fires  against  Napoleon  on  the  Spanish  peninsula, 
our  own  country,  without  the  sinews  of  war,  inaugurated 

103 


104  THE   IMMORTAL   SEVEN 

with  the  mother  country  its  leaderless,  inglorious  cam- 
paign, whose  crowning  absurdity  was  the  treaty  of  peace, 
which  did  not  even  mention  the  issues  on  which  hostilities 
were  begun,  whatever  they  were.  Stephen  Girard,  David 
Parish,  and  John  Jacob  Astor  saved  the  country  by  com- 
ing forward  in  a  sacrificial  spirit  and  taking  the  six-per- 
cent bonds  at  eighty-eight  dollars  on  the  hundred  and 
one  and  one-half  per  cent  commission.  On  the  day  after 
the  ordination  one  hundred  years  ago  Charles  Dickens 
was  born,  with  his  peculiar  sympathy  for  the  sufferings 
and  sorrows  of  childhood,  his  vehement  hatred  of  in- 
justice and  oppression,  and  his  unapproached  ability  to 
exhibit  to  the  scorn  of  men  hideous  scenes  of  vice  and 
misery. 

From  our  mount  of  vision  we  look  upon  the  scene 
in  China  and  find  that  in  the  year  1812  that  empire  pro- 
mulgated an  edict  against  Christianity;  but  to-day  from 
this  Pisgah  of  observation,  looking  out  on  continent  and 
on  island,  we  find  one  hundred  and  one  separate  societies 
engaged  in  taking  Christianity  to  the  heathen.  Rev.  J. 
Murray  Mitchell,  LL.  D.,  has  told  how  he  once  ascended 
to  a  high  summit  in  India  in  search  of  the  source  of  the 
Godavari  River;  how  at  last  a  spot  was  reached  where 
so  few  were  the  drops  that  trickled  from  the  rocks  that 
they  could  for  some  seconds  be  held  in  the  hollow  of  his 
hand ;  and  at  that  point  one  could  in  a  few  moments  scoop 
out  a  new  channel  and  turn  the  whole  stream  in  a  new 
direction.  From  such  an  insignificant  rill  springs  one  of 
India's  noblest  rivers.  The  little  stream  he  saw,  flowing 
down  the  slope  and  gradually  broadening,  then  run- 
ning eastward  toward  the  Bay  of  Bengal,  growing  wider 
and  deeper,  gathering  volume  and  momentum,  until  it 
became  the  secret  of  fertility  to  thousands  of  acres  other- 
wise dry  and  desert.  "  The  waters  that  ran  in  dry  places 
like  a  river  "  are  foreign  missions.    In  tracing  the  benefi- 


FROM    THE   CENTENNIAL   PISGAH  105 

cent  stream  to  its  head,  as  we  track  the  King  of  Rivers 
to  Lake  Itasca,  we  come  in  this  country  to  Salem. 

The  Voices  of  History 

It  was  a  law  of  ancient  Israel  that  every  fiftieth  year 
should  be  kept  as  a  jubilee.  At  the  end  of  one  hundred 
years,  the  Tabernacle  Church  found  herself  at  one  of  the 
great  mile-stones  of  the  ages.  Dr.  Samuel  M.  Worcester, 
a  former  pastor,  believed  and  said,  that  the  Tabernacle 
considered  simply  as  a  church  and  not  as  a  poets'  corner, 
nor  as  a  burial-place  of  kings,  but  as  a  church  considered 
on  church  lines,  is  the  most  famous  church  in  the  world. 
If  the  Tabernacle  in  London  is  entitled  to  be  called  "  The 
Cradle  of  the  London  Missionary  Society/'  the  Taber- 
nacle in  Salem  is  the  cradle  of  the  great  American  Evan- 
gel to  "them  that  are  afar  off."  With  an  audience 
intensely  affected  at  the  ordination  of  early  missionaries, 
this  sanctuary  of  holy  convocation  has  presented  re- 
peatedly a  thrilling  scene.  At  Salem,  writes  Doctor 
Goodell,  of  Constantinople,  the  great  translator,  there 
were  eleven  of  us  together,  ordained  and  expectant  mis- 
sionaries, a  number  equal  to  that  of  the  apostles  as  they 
returned  to  Jerusalem  from  Olivet.  Here  on  this  spot 
the  clarion  voice  of  Whitefield  had  electrified  a  vast  con- 
course of  people.  By  the  charm  of  every  kind  of  sacred 
association  the  past  is  recalled  into  the  midst  of  the  busy 
present.  We  look  with  deep  interest  on  a  place  so  often 
signalized  by  the  memorable  events  of  our  holy  religion. 
We  must  actually  revisit  the  scene  we  commemorate  to 
appreciate  how  sharp  a  turn  was  here  given  to  history. 
The  churches  of  this  country  were  planted  by  men  who 
had  fled  as  exiles  from  European  oppression  and  their 
minds  were  engrossed  in  seeking  security  and  freedom 
for  themselves.  America  at  the  first  had  been  itself  a 
field  of  missionary  effort  to  the  Christians  of  Europe. 


106  THE  IMMORTAL   SEVEN 

The  churches  in  England  had  been  accustomed  to  pray 

in  their  songs : 

Dark  America  convert, 
And  every  heathen  land. 

A'  society  had  existed  in  England,  and  collections  were 
taken  in  aid  of  the  missions  of  Eliot  and  his  associates 
among  the  aboriginal  Americans.  The  same  story  is  told 
by  the  State  Seal  of  Massachusetts,  which  bears  the 
figure  of  an  Indian  and  a  star.  The  star  on  which  the 
Indian  gazes  is  the  star  of  Bethlehem.  The  first  settlers 
of  New  England  were  the  first  Englishmen  who  devised 
and  executed  a  mission  to  the  heathen.  The  inspiring 
idea  of  Columbus  was  derived  from  the  prophecies,  and 
a  part  of  his  intention  was  of  a  missionary  character.  His 
patroness,  Isabella,  made  the  conversion  of  the  heathen 
an  object "  paramount  to  all  the  rest."  At  Salem  occurred 
the  "  'Bout  face !  "  of  our  religious  history.  Here  was 
witnessed  an  entire  change  of  front.  Up  to  this  time  the 
religious  wave  of  effort  and  benevolence  had  flowed  from 
the  east  westward,  but  for  the  first  time  in  all  our  Chris- 
tian annals  it  was  here  met  by  the  refluent  wave.  What 
rapture  would  have  come  to  the  participants  in  the  initial 
ordination,  if  they  could  have  foreseen  the  results  that 
have  come  and  that  are  yet  to  develop  from  their  act  of 
sublime  Christian  devotion,  reaching  to  all  nations!  In 
some  measure  Doctor  Judson  must  have  realized  the  his- 
toric relation  of  this  place  to  all  foreign  missionary 
effort;  hence  when,  on  his  only  visit  to  this  country,  he 
came  into  the  Tabernacle  Church  one  Sunday  during  the 
session  of  the  Sabbath-school,  and  would  not  rest  until 
he  came  and  seated  himself  upon  the  historic  settee  which 
has  now  been  styled  by  Mr.  Byington  a  throne.  This 
settee  Doctor  Judson  recognized  and  identified  as  the  one 
on  which  he  was  seated  at  the  ordination  service.  Still 
preserved  and  widely  photographed,  it  was   originally 


\ 

FROM   THE   CENTENNIAL   PISGAH  IO7 

called  the  Deacons'  Seat,  and  used  to  be  placed  in  front 
of  the  pews,  before  the  pulpit,  facing  the  congregation. 
After  the  old  Tabernacle  was  taken  down,  it  was  used 
as  a  seat  on  the  lawn,  till  Mr.  Richard  C.  Manning  secured 
it,  dressed  it,  and  gave  it  to  the  church.  Mr.  Manning 
said  that  he  remembered  well  how  Judson  looked  on  the 
occasion  of  this  visit.  There  was  something  very  im- 
pressive about  his  personality,  and  he  had  about  him  a 
certain  mode  or  atmosphere  of  chivalric  enthusiasm  which 
everybody  seems  to  have  remarked. 

The  Divine  Ferment 

The  beloved  and  almost  idolized  younger  Worcester,  in 
speaking  of  Judson,  who  had  a  singularly  gifted  sus- 
ceptible nature,  says  that  in  a  *  conversation  there "  on 
the  identical  spot  where  he  was  ordained,  he  "  appeared 
to  have  a  vivid  recollection  of  the  thrilling  events  of 
February,  1812,"  and  to  think  very  tenderly  of  this  holy 
place,  toward  which  hundreds  of  religious  people  now 
turn  their  pilgrim  feet.  If  after  an  exact  century  any 
assemblage  of  believers  ever  had  an  occasion  to  lift  up 
a  song  of  gladness,  approbation,  triumph,  and  hope,  it 
was  this  sympathetic,  large,  prosperous,  strong,  united 
church  on  February  6,  1912.  Invitations  were  sent  to  all 
the  corporate  members  of  the  American  Board,  all  its 
officers  and  those  of  the  Woman's  Board,  many  distin- 
guished officials  in  other  organizations,  all  of  our  mis- 
sionaries on  furlough  in  this  country,  and  to  all  the 
churches  in  our  conference,  thirty-two  in  number,  all 
except  three  being  represented,  most  of  them  by  both 
pastor  and  delegate — making  a  striking  contrast  with 
the  simple  number  of  three  churches  sitting  in  the  original 
council — Rev.  George  A.  Hall,  grandson  of  Gordon  Hall, 
who  was  ordained  in  the  early  solemnity,  and  Doctor 
Vivian,  professor  of  mathematics  in  Wellesley  College, 


108  THE   IMMORTAL   SEVEN 

great-granddaughter  of  Samuel  Nott,  and  her  mother 
were  here.  The  engraver's  art  comes  to  our  aid  in  an 
address  to  the  eye.  Through  the  research,  skill,  and 
generosity  of  our  esteemed  citizen,  Mr.  John  Robinson, 
we  behold  the  form  of  the  "  Caravan,"  whose  cabin  stands 
related  to  the  American  Baptist  Foreign  Mission  Society 
very  much  as  the  cabin  of  the  "  Mayflower  "  does  to  the 
social  compact.  The  old  bass  viol,  wondrously  preserved, 
used  one  hundred  years  ago  when  Judson  and  his  asso- 
ciates were  ordained,  was  brought  forward,  having  been 
repaired  and  strung,  that,  with  its  pathetic,  affecting  tones, 
and  with  its  feeble  voice,  such  as  would  be  expected  in 
an  instrument  that  has  come  down  to  us  from  the  days 
when  James  Madison  was  the  fourth  President  of  the 
United  States,  it  might  address  the  ear.  This  instrument 
was  played  in  the  choir  at  Essex  for  forty  years.  Dr. 
David  Choate,  now  senior  deacon  in  the  Tabernacle 
Church,  when  a  boy  in  Essex  played  it  there,  from  1844 
to  1848.  Dr.  David  D.  Mussey  practised  medicine  in 
Essex,  became  a  member  of  the  choir,  and  played  the 
bass  viol  which  he  had  brought  with  him  to  that  town. 
In  the  village  church  one  Fourth  of  July  he  delivered 
the  oration.  'As  there  was  at  that  time  no  other  player 
on  the  instrument,  he  left  his  seat  on  the  pulpit  platform 
and  descended  to  the  floor  to  play  the  bass  viol  when 
music  was  wanted.  On  leaving  Essex  in  1809  to  prac- 
tise his  profession  in  Salem,  he  gave  the  bass  viol  to  the 
Choates  with  whom  he  had  boarded.  Soon  after  his 
arrival  in  Salem  he  joined  the  Tabernacle  Church.  Ac- 
cording to  the  parish  records,  a  short  time  before  the 
ordination  of  the  missionaries  Doctor  Mussey  was  chosen 
by  vote  to  see  what  could  be  done  to  improve  the  church 
music.  He  sent  to  Essex  and  borrowed  the  bass  viol  of 
the  Choates  to  be  used,  as  the  records  attest,  on  "  the 
important  occasion." 


PRESENT   TABERNACLE   CHURCH,    SALEM 


FROM    THE   CENTENNIAL    PISGAH  IO9 

Mrs.  Sarah  Caldwell,  who  came  from  Marblehead  and 
joined  the  Tabernacle  Church  when  she  was  eighteen, 
under  Doctor  Worcester's  pungent  ministry  became  in- 
terested in  foreign  missions,  and  her  husband  made  for 
her  a  suggestive,  tKough  silent,  almsgatherer.  The  elder 
Worcester  circulated  a  paper  among  the  ladies  of  Salem, 
and  between  two  and  three  hundred  dollars  was  raised. 
Andover  Seminary  despatched  its  students  throughout 
New  England  to  serve  as  financial  agents,  and  in  this 
veritable  crusade,  and  in  the  stir  and  ferment  of  enthu- 
siasm, this  mite-box  and  the  Salem  Cent  Society,  which 
was  very  active  during  the  year  1811,  were  employed  as 
instrumentalities  for  equipping  the  missionaries. 

The  Solemnity  that  Commemorates 

Back  of  the  pulpit  the  entire  wall  was  hidden  from 
sight  by  a  huge  American  flag.  Along  the  balconies  were 
displayed  flags  of  Mexico,  Austria,  Turkey,  Ceylon,  Bul- 
garia, Spain,  Portugal,  China,  Japan,  and  the  chief  fields 
of  the  operations  of  the  American  Board.  It  was  in-, 
teresting  to  see  the  swarms  of  people  distribute  them- 
selves according  to  their  predilections  into  two  different 
groups.  It  is  said  that  on  the  outward  voyage  of  arctic 
expeditions  the  crew  will  assort  itself,  some  looking  abaft 
on  receding  scenes  full  of  suggestion,  memory,  and  in- 
terest; others  are  inclined  to  look  forward  only,  to  con- 
jecture the  future  and  to  tell  over  to  each  other  their 
hopes.  Exactly  so  at  the  jubilee  held  to  signalize  the 
feelings  in  all  hearts  because  the  Lord  here  had  visited 
his  people  and  the  place  of  his  feet  is  glorious.  Some 
people  would  bunch  themselves  about  the  famous  settee, 
and  about  the  portraitures  of  Harriet  Newell  and  Mrs. 
Judson,  and  about  the  solid  mahogany  table,  which  bears 
a  gold  plate  stating  that  sitting  around  it,  the  first  five 
commissioners  of  the  American  Board  appointed  at  Brad- 


110  THE  IMMORTAL  SEVEN 

ford,  when  Judson  and  his  associates  had  presented  their 
memorial,  held  their  first  meeting  in  the  parlor  of  Rev. 
Noah  Porter  at  Farmington,  Connecticut.  These  objects 
performed  well  the  office  which  is  so  effectively  rendered 
by  the  curiosities  carefully  preserved  in  the  cathedrals 
and  at  the  shrines  of  the  Old  World. 

Who'll  press  for  gold  yon  crowded  street 

A  hundred  years  to  come? 
Who'll  tread  this  church  with  willing  feet 

A  hundred  years  to  come? 
Pale,  trembling  age  and  fiery  youth, 
And  childhood,  with  its  brow  of  truth, 
The  rich  and  poor,  on  land  and  sea — 
Where  will  the  mighty  millions  be 

A  hundred  years  to  come? 

We  all  within  our  graves  shall  sleep 

A  hundred  years  to  come; 
No  living  soul  for  us  shall  weep 

A   hundred  years   to   come. 
But  other  men  our  land  will  till, 
And  others  then  our  streets  shall  fill, 
And  other  singers,  gay  and  bright, 
Shall  rouse  the  drowsy  hours  of  night 

A  hundred  years  to  come. 

Others  with  more  of  the  Athenian  spirit,  either  to  tell 
or  to  hear  some  new  thing,  were  distinctively  to-morrow 
people,  evidently  believing  in  the  good  time  coming,  that 
the  millennium  is  ahead  and  that  "  the  glory  of  this  latter 
house  shall  be  greater  than  of  the  former."  They  rose 
and  faced  the  sun  and,  without  attempting  to  reconstruct 
history  or  to  have  their  spiritual  imagination  suffused 
with  the  glory  of  the  past  and  with  what  it  all  meant, 
they  centered  their  interest  in  the  five  promising,  attractive, 
tall  young  men,  tall  in  the  best  sense  of  that  term — a  credit 
to  the  churches  that  sent  them  forth — who  presented 
themselves  at  this  council  to  be  set  apart   for  special 


FROM   THE   CENTENNIAL   PISGAH  III 

service  in  a  solemn  ceremony  that  marked  the  centennial 
of  the  early  ordination  to  the  hour.  It  was  like  life 
from  the  dead. 

The  Vitality  of  Missions 

If  anything  helps  to  stimulate  interest  in  these  gallant 
recruits,  whose  lives  are  all  before  them  and  who  are  to 
encroach  farther  and  farther  upon  the  spiritual  dominions 
of  the  prince  of  darkness,  it  is  a  view  of  the  panorama 
of  missions  from  the  hundred-storied  height  whereon 
we  stand.  We  are  not  to  think  that  the  men  who  shaped 
the  beginnings  and  planted  the  small  seed  made  the  his- 
tory, marvelous  as  is  the  vitality  of  a  seed.  It  is  the 
history  that  has  made  the  men.  It  kindles  the  flame  of 
missionary  zeal,  excites  hope  and  expectation,  and  starts 
almost  a  feeling  of  awe,  as  one  looks  upon  the  vast  pos- 
sibilities in  consecrated  young  men.  Ezekiel  came  to 
those  who  had  sung  the  Lord's  song  in  a  strange  land, 
and  "  sat  where  they  sat."  He  had  perfect  sympathy. 
He  looked  at  things  from  the  same  point  of  view.  In 
the  spirit  exactly  of  Judson,  Hall,  Newell,  Nott,  Rice,  in 
the  later  council,  on  the  same  settee,1  sat  Samuel  R. 
Harlow,  a  graduate  of  Union  Theological  Seminary,  who, 
it  is  said,  decided  to  become  a  missionary  when  but  eleven 
years  of  age,  and  was  now  here  with  his  bride,  assigned 
to  the  West  Turkey  Mission;  James  K.  Lyman,  of  the 
Oberlin  Theological  Seminary,  assigned  to  Central  Tur- 
key; Charles  H.  Maas,  who  is  to  go  to  the  Marshall 
Islands;  Jerome  C.  Holmes,  of  Hartford  Theological 
Seminary,  designated  to  Japan;  and  William  R.  Leete,  of 

1  This  settee  bears  two  silver  plates  which  give  it  first  place  among  objects 
of  missionary   interest.  , 

"  Upon  this  seat  Rev.  Messrs.  Newell,  Judson,  Nott,  Hall,  and  Rice  sat 
in  the  Tabernacle  Church,  Salem,  February  6,  1812,  when  ordained  to  the 
work  of  the  gospel  ministry  as  missionaries  to  the  heathen  in  Asia." 

"Upon  this  settee,  Messrs.  Leete,  Harlow,  Lyman,  Holmes,  and  Maas 
sat  in  the  Tabernacle  Church,  Salera,  February  6,  1912,  when  ordained  as  mis- 
sionaries of  the  A.  B.  C.  F.  M.  to  China,  Turkey,  Japan,  and  Marshall 
Islands." 


112  THE   IMMORTAL   SEVEN 

Union   Theological   Seminary,   who  enters    evangelistic 
work  at  Smyrna. 

As  Impressive  as  It  Is  Uncommon 

As  was  the  case  one  hundred  years  ago,  so  on  Feb- 
ruary 6,  1912,  the  solemnity  and  pathos  centered  in  the 
laying  on  of  hands.  The  prayer  by  Pres.  Albert  P. 
Fitch  made  one  think  of  the  petition  of  Solomon  at  the 
dedication.  Couched  in  noble  phrase,  with  the  last  touch 
of  exquisiteness,  beautiful  in  the  supreme  degree,  it  had 
the  elements  of  moral  sublimity.  Each  of  the  officiating 
clergy  placed  his  hand  of  consecration  upon  the  head  of 
one  of  the  young  missionaries,  the  two  fathers  in  par- 
ticular dedicating  their  own  sons.  One  of  them  in  entire 
apparent  unconsciousness,  instead  of  resting  his  hand  in 
the  passive  professional  way,  with  a  father's  overflowing 
heart,  as  if  instinctively,  took  both  hands  and  in  a  touch- 
ing way  gently  stroked  his  son's  head  in  love  and  com- 
mendation. At  this  moving  sight,  some  of  the  ladies 
present,  as  Virgil  would  express  it,  were  "  wet  as  to  their 
shining  eyes  with  tears."  At  this,  the  culminating  point 
of  the  whole  scene,  the  photographer  comes  to  our  aid 
with  his  art,  and  enables  us  to  recognize  the  young  men 
from  left  to  right  as  they  kneel  in  the  affecting  solem- 
nities: Maas,  Lyman,  Holmes,  Leete,  and  Harlow.  The 
clergymen  who  place  their  hands  upon  the  heads  of  the 
young  missionaries  in  the  sacred  rite,  standing  from  left 
to  right,  are  Doctors  Boynton,  Clark,  President  Fitch; 
standing  in  the  center,  voicing  their  petition,  Rev.  Messrs. 
Leete  and  Harlow.  Behind  them  are  Doctor  Barton, 
the  statesman  of  the  American  Board,  and  Doctor  Capen, 
its  president,  who  later  brought  its  greetings,  standing 
near  as  if  in  support  and  sympathy. 

The  successor  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  Dr.  Newell 
Dwight  Hillis,  of  Brooklyn,  said  that  he  would  have 


FROM    THE   CENTENNIAL    PISGAH  II3 

walked  to  Salem  to  share  in  the  service.  The  occasion 
was  just  suited  to  his  spirit  and  type  of  mind  and  heart. 
He  exhibited  the  inherent  power  and  tendency  of  Chris- 
tianity to  become  universal.  It  is  not  suited  to  dominate 
at  all  if  it  is  not  fit  to  prevail  in  every  land. 

Rev.  Raymond  Calkins,  D.  D.,  showed  that  missionary 
work  answers  the  reproach  which  has  been  lately  uttered, 
touching  the  inability  of  the  church  to  produce  a  hero. 
It  is  the  glory  of  a  great  idea  that  it  cannot  remain  the 
ornament  of  one  individual.  Successes  abroad  say  to  the 
church  at  home,  "  Physician,  heal  thyself."  Each  speaker 
seemed  to  strike  the  popular  chord  and  to  gain  a  response 
from  the  vibrant  auditory.  His  honor,  Mayor  Rufus  D. 
Adams,  a  member  of  the  Tabernacle  Church,  a  teacher  of 
boys  in  her  Sunday-school,  welcomed  the  council  to  the 
city,  thus  immuning  local  Christians  from  the  sneer 
of  the  Pharisees,  "  Have  any  of  the  rulers  believed  on 
him  ?  "  Tarrying  in  the  heart  like  a  beautiful  stanza  in 
a  poem,  or  a  noble  strain  of  music,  is  "  The  Missionary's 
Call,"  which  was  rendered  by  Rev.  Messrs.  Eddy,  Bell, 
Person,  and  Smith.  The  hymn  was  written  by  Nathan 
Brown,  D.  D.,  a  missionary  of  the  American  Baptist 
Foreign  Mission  Society,  pioneer  in  work  in  Assam, 
and  later  a  missionary  in  Japan.  The  tune  was  composed 
by  a  relative  in  one  of  the  families  in  which  Judson  was 
entertained  while  waiting  for  the  brig  "  Caravan "  to 
sail.  It  has  always  been  associated  with  the  romance  of 
the  first  foreign  missionaries.  It  has  affected  directly  the 
hearts  of  heroes  in  our  home  field.  It  was  once  sung 
by  the  choir  of  Dr.  Zechariah  Eddy,  a  master  of  assem- 
blies, an  expert  in  sacred  song,  who  later  was  the  pastor 
of  a  great  church  in  Detroit.  It  was  at  the  evening's 
service.  His  heart  was  melted.  Next  morning  he  wrote 
to  Doctor  Badger,  the  Home  Missionary  Secretary,  pla- 
cing himself  at  his  disposal.    That  autumn  he  was  found 

H 


114  THE   IMMORTAL   SEVEN 

conducting  revival  services  in  a  bowling-alley  at  New 
Diggings,  one  of  the  roughest  mining-camps  of  the  time  in 
the  West.  The  words  are  exquisite.  The  music  is  stately, 
elevating,  and  touched  with  homage. 

My  soul  is  not  at  rest.    There  comes  a  strange 
And  secret  whisper  to  my  spirit,  like 
A  dream  of  night,  that  tells  me  I  am  on 
Enchanted  ground.    Why  live  I  here?    The  vows 
of  God  are  on  me. 

A  little  booklet  has  recently  been  found  in  Andover, 
one  of  the  very  first  imprints  of  that  town,  writes  Rev. 
C.  C.  Carpenter,  published  in  1810,  containing  letters 
about  the  early  English  missions  in  India.  In  it  is  the 
hymn,  "  Farewell  to  the  Missionaries,"  beginning,  "  Sov- 
ereign of  Worlds,  display  thy  power."  The  three  closing 
stanzas  form  our  familiar  hymn,  reading  then  as  follows : 

Yes — Christian  heroes  !— go — proclaim 
Salvation  through  Immanuel's  name; 
To  India's  clime  the  tidings  bear, 
And  plant  the  Rose  of  Sharon  there. 

It  is  very  significant,  that  this  missionary  hymn,  printed 
on  Andover  Hill  in  the  very  year  of  the  organization  of 
the  American  Board,  and  doubtless  often  sung  there  by 
those  first  missionary  students,  and  perhaps  at  their 
ordination  in  1812,  should  have  been  used  at  the  Taber- 
nacle just  a  hundred  years  afterward  at  the  consecration 
of  their  successors.  In  181 2  India  was  the  one  great, 
almost  the  only,  field  of  missionary  messengers;  it  was 
to  "  India's  clime  "  they  were  to  bear  the  tidings.  They 
were  unquestionably  regarded  as  "  Christian  heroes."  2 

2 "  Sovereign  of  Worlds "  can  be  found,  page  722,  in  the  well-remem- 
bered— and  a  long  memory  is  not  required — "  Watts'  and  Select  Hymns,"  once 
in  almost  universal  use,  the  work  of  Dr.  Samuel  Worcester,  enlarged  by 
his  son,  Dr.  Samuel  M.  Worcester,  both  in  succession  pastors  of  the 
Tabernacle  Church.  At  the  margin  of  the  page  are  set  certain  vowels  to 
indicate  the  quantity  of  voice  to  be  used  in  singing  and  the  rapidity  of  the 
movement.  The  letter  a  means  very  slow,  the  letter  u  when  in  italics  means 
very  loud. 


FROM   THE   CENTENNIAL   PISGAH  II5 

The  festival  in  Salem  "  was  to  many  present  even  more 
impressive,"  says  "  The  Congregationalism"  "  than  the  hay- 
stack centenary  in  1907  and  the  series  of  anniversaries  held 
in  Boston  in  19 10."  It  was  "  the  real  centennial  of  foreign 
missions  in  America.  It  was  the  most  impressive  church 
council  which  has  been  held  for  many  years.  In  Feb- 
ruary, 1812,  the  really  decisive  measure  was  taken  by  the 
ordination  and  embarkation  of  the  first  missionaries.  That 
was  the  launching  of  the  modern  missionary  movement  in 
America."  "  The  congregation  at  the  evening  session 
was  no  larger  than  in  the  afternoon,"  says  "  The  Mis- 
sionary Herald,"  "  simply  because  no  more  could  get  in. 
Galleries  as  well  as  floor  were  crowded.  About  the  doors 
there  was  always  a  company  standing,"  and  many  people 
said  that  it  came  home  to  the  feelings  more  than  any  cere- 
monial they  ever  attended.  "  The  Boston  Globe  "  stated 
that  there  were  3,600  persons  in  the  audiences  of  the 
day.  After  the  second  collation  of  the  day  in  the  vestry 
of  the  church,  Rev.  H.  Grant  Person,  of  the  Eliot  Church 
in  Newton,  in  voicing  a  vote  of  thanks,  said  that  the  ob- 
servances of  the  day  appealed  to  people  more  than  those 
of  two  years  ago  in  Boston  and  Andover  and  Bradford. 
The  thing  celebrated  was  so  romantic,  so  pathetic,  so  wide- 
reaching,  so  fruitful,  so  human  and  touching,  that  it 
seemed  to  go  to  the  heart  irresistibly.  And  we  had  too, 
our  Ann  Hasseltine,  the  fresh-faced  bride,  nee  Stafford, 
married  to  Mr.  Harlow  on  the  Thursday  before  the  cen- 
tenary, who  was  surrounded  all  day  by  a  group  of  ad- 
mirers on  account  of  her  personal  attractiveness  and  by 
reason  of  the  analogous  historical  position  which  she 
occupied.    She  was  early  sought  as  a  guest. 

A  City  Noted  for  Hospitality 

The  families  that  entertained  the  celebrated  mission- 
aries, especially  the  young  ladies  who  went  to  Asia  a 


Il6  THE   IMMORTAL   SEVEN 

hundred  years  ago,  would  be  glad  to  have  tablets  placed 
on  their  homes,  stating  that  they  opened  their  doors  to 
them,  "  for  thereby  some  have  entertained  angels  un- 
awares." The  grace  of  hospitality  that  so  beautifully 
illumines  the  earlier  event  was  also  a  spontaneous  and 
striking  feature  of  our  later  festival.  Members  of  other 
households  of  faith  than  our  own  expressed  their  willing- 
ness to  stand  at  their  doors  with  an  extended  right  hand 
of  welcome  to  any  guest  who  should  be  assigned,  and 
many  more  homes  were  opened  than  could  be  used.  They 
had  often  heard  delightful  memories  recalled  in  homes, 
which,  through  keeping  a  prophet's  chamber,  had  some 
such  experience  as  Obed-edom  and  his  family  had  in 
sheltering  the  ark  of  Israel.  An  editor  said,  "  It  seemed 
like  a  family  gathering."  Above  the  eloquence,  surpass- 
ing the  music,  was  the  spirit  of  friendliness  and  comrade- 
ship, which  pervaded  the  great  day  of  the  feast.  The 
welcome  was  obvious.  It  did  not  need  to  be  explained. 
The  people  felt  it,  understood  it,  and  knew  that  they  were 
wanted,  and  that  they  added  something  to  the  eclat  and 
joyousness  by  their  presence  as  it  increased  the  size  and 
volume  of  the  jubilee.  The  papers  said  that,  "  The  morn- 
ing service  closed  with  felicitation  on  every  side."  In 
rising  to  a  great  occasion  that  elicited  everybody's  good 
wishes,  the  church  used  forces  she  hardly  knew  she  had, 
and  was  thus  a  surprise  to  herself.  Her  activities,  her 
vitality,  her  effectiveness  of  organization,  her  numbers, 
her  energies,  her  full  self,  were  employed  with  pleasure. 
Her  courts  overflowed,  and  it  was  affecting  to  see  the 
church,  which  is  about  the  pleasantest  in  the  world  to 
attend,  respond  to  the  salutations,  the  joy,  and  the  hearti- 
ness that  marked  this  unusual  public  demonstration. 

In  the  life  of  a  child  the  anniversary  is  a  marked  event, 
but  when  races  and  a  millennium  are  contemplated  the 
century  becomes  the  unit. 


FROM    THE   CENTENNIAL   PISGAH  II7 

Our  fathers'  God !  from  out  whose  hand 
The  centuries  fall  like  grains  of  sand, 
We  meet  to-day,  united,  free, 
And  loyal  to  our  land  and  thee, 
To  thank  thee  for  the  era  done, 
And  trust  thee  for  the  opening  one. 

Oh,  make  thou  us,  through  centuries  long 
In  peace  secure,  in  justice  strong; 
Around  our  gift  of  freedom  draw 
The  safeguards  of  thy  righteous  law ; 
And  cast  in  some  diviner  mold, 
Let  the  new  cycle  shame  the  old ! 

It  has  become  a  canon  in  the  church,  when  you  meet 
a  man  who  has  held  strongly  a  conspicuous  pulpit  for  ten 
years,  to  take  off  your  hat  to  him;  but  in  this  church  is 
an  honored  pastor,  Dr.  DeWitt  S.  Clark,  who  has  already 
enjoyed  the  implicit  confidence  of  his  church  for  the 
same  length  of  time  that  Judson  was  out  of  the  country 
on  his  formative  mission;  and  where  has  there  been  a 
more  harmonious  congregation?  The  pastor  and  people 
were  adapted  to  work  together.  He  was  the  shepherd  and 
the  flock  heard  his  voice.  Fortunate  church,  fortunate 
man !  He  has  given  to  the  office  the  prominence  which  the 
New  Testament  accords  to  it.  Happy  in  finding  wisdom 
with  length  of  days  in  her  right  hand,  he  is  distinguished 
by  the  roll  of  his  friendships,  by  the  unequaled  number, 
probably,  of  his  brethren,  who  consult  with  him  on 
personal  and  professional  concerns. 

Daguerreotype  of  the  Past 

There  are  no  contrasts  like  those  of  Christianity, 
whether  we  look  at  events,  or  at  ideals  and  ambitions. 
The  extremes  of  a  century  furnish  view-points  for  an 
estimate  of  progress.  One  hundred  years  ago  the  fires 
of  the  suttee  were  publicly  blazing,  even  in  the  presidency 
towns  of  Madras,  Bombay,  Calcutta,  and  all  over  India. 


Il8  THE  IMMORTAL  SEVEN 

Upon  these  fires  the  screaming  and  struggling  widow,  in 
many  cases  herself  a  mere  child,  was  bound  and  burned 
to  ashes  with  the  dead  body  of  her  husband.  One  hun- 
dred years  ago  infants  were  publicly  thrown  into  the 
Ganges  as  sacrifices  to  the  goddess  of  the  river.  Lepers 
were  burned  alive.  Devotees  publicly  starved  to  death, 
and  swinging  festivals  attracted  thousands  to  see  the 
poor  writhing  wretches,  with  iron  hooks  thrust  through 
the  muscles  of  their  backs,  swing  in  mid-air  in  honor  of 
their  gods.  The  early  ordination  had  a  critic  who  claimed 
it  was  a  fanatical,  ill-advised  use  of  good  money  and  con- 
tinued, "  it  will  make  no  difference  a  hundred  years  hence  " ; 
but  since  that  event  the  Bible,  reckoning  Judson's  trans- 
lation, has  been  put  into  two  hundred  and  fifty  languages, 
five  times  as  many  as  in  all  the  centuries  since  the  days 
of  Peter,  James,  and  John,  and  more  copies  were  sent  info 
circulation  in  a  single  year  than  existed  in  the  whole 
world  together  when  the  "  Caravan  "  and  "  Harmony  " 
sailed  for  Calcutta.  The  grain  of  mustard-seed  has 
become  a  great  tree.  The  world  can  never  get  over  facts. 
Christianity  never  stood  so  erect  and  formidable  before 
the  waiting  nations  as  now.  The  cruelties  and  obscenities 
of  the  Juggernaut  have  been  displaced  by  the  faith  of  the 
once  despised  Galilean,  even  as  the  shadows  flee  away 
before  the  rising  of  the  sun. 

Stranger  than  Fiction 

By  the  very  antithesis  of  history,  we  find  that  Judson, 
when  sick  in  India,  was  forced  to  occupy  the  empty  cage 
of  a  lion  which  had  just  died,  but  we  look  again  and 
find  that  the  King  of  Burma,  at  his  own  expense,  built  a 
Christian  church,  a  parsonage,  and  a  schoolhouse  near 
the  very  spot  where  the  lion's  cage  had  stood,  and  the 
king's  sons  were  pupils  in  the  school,  taught  by  the  Chris- 
tian missionaries.    Had  Mrs.  Judson  been  told  the  pres- 


&w                         BHBHPW^'flSHH 

AN    IDOL    IN    THE    MUD 


FROM   THE   CENTENNIAL   PISGAH  119 

ent  story  of  woman's  work  for  woman,  she  would  have 
said :  "  If  the  Lord  should  make  windows  in  heaven, 
might  such  a  thing  be."  If  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
original  ordination,  we  review  the  success  of  the  Amer- 
ican Board,  we  find  it  reports  that  at  the  end  of  the  year 
181 1  it  has  received  $79.95,  while  at  the  centennial  it  was 
found  that  the  American  Board  received  in  the  last  year, 
$1,029,772. 

In  1812,  all  of  the  young  men  were  from  Andover 
Seminary.  No  Divinity  College  like  it  then  existed  in 
this  or  in  any  land.  At  the  earliest  opening  of  her  doors, 
Judson,  Newell,  and  Nott  were  among  the  first  applicants 
for  admission  to  that  sacred  school  of  the  knowledge  of 
God  and  graduated  in  her  first  class.  All  of  the  min- 
isters participating  in  the  first  council  were  in  some  official 
way  connected  with  that  school  of  the  prophets,  dis- 
tinguished now  by  having  educated  two  hundred  and 
forty-eight  men  for  the  foreign  field,  whose  aggregate 
service  is  five  thousand  years,  and  the  end  is  not  yet.  At 
the  later  ordination  Andover  had  no  candidate. 

Turning  back  the  wheels  of  time,  we  find  that  there 
was  in  18 12  no  such  thing  as  a  religious  newspaper  in 
existence,  if  we  set  aside  the  possible  claim  of  the 
"  Herald  of  Gospel  Liberty,"  begun  in  Portsmouth  and 
removed  to  Dayton,  Ohio,  and  except  a  sort  of  serial, 
not  a  newspaper  published  for  the  specific  purpose  of 
giving  revival  intelligence.  The  earliest  ordination  of 
missionaries,  shown  to  have  been  an  epoch-making  event, 
was  reported  in  the  local  paper  in  ten  lines,  and  in  the 
same  issue  the  "  Salem  Gazette  "  printed  an  article  by 
President  Smith,  of  Princeton  University,  in  disparage- 
ment of  missions,  uttering  a  note  of  discord  which  was 
echoed  for  many  3^ears,  whereas  with  the  varied  accounts 
of  the  ordination  of  the  five  men  at  the  centenary  a 
person  could  paper  a  good-sized  room. 


120  THE   IMMORTAL   SEVEN 

The  Royal  Roster 

The  impression  left  by  clergymen  upon  their  families  is 
lasting.  Judson  was  the  son  of  a  minister,  and  himself 
left  a  son  who  is  a  distinguished  minister.  If  talents  exist 
in  a  clergyman's  son,  his  relations  are  such  that  they  are 
sure  to  be  observed  and  to  win  admiration. 

As  the  world  grows  familiar  with  Judson's  formative 
work,  the  more  impatience  is  felt  that  no  missionary 
figures  among  those  elevated  to  prominent  niches  in  the 
semi-circular  Colonnade  connecting  the  Hall  of  Philosophy 
and  the  Hall  of  Languages  on  the  Hudson  facing  the 
Palisades,  where  one  hundred  and  fifty  illustrious  names 
approved  by  one  hundred  judges  are  being  inscribed. 
Only  thirty  names  were  approved  by  the  judges  out  of 
two  hundred  submitted,  and  Judson  received  more  than 
thirty  votes. 

We  have  no  Westminster,  nor  have  we,  even  in  the 
Statuary  Hall  in  the  Capitol,  any  choice  collection  of 
the  nation's  most  famous  dead,  by  reason  of  the  restric- 
tion that  limits  to  a  representation  of  two  a  State  that 
already  figures  so  largely  in  the  Honor  Roll  in  the  Colon- 
nade at  the  University  of  New  York.  But  reverence 
ennobles  the  mind.  The  past  refines.  When  all  is  money, 
let  us  have  some  mind,  and  memory,  and  association.  The 
missionaries  have  done  more  than  their  part  to  exalt  char- 
acter, stir  chivalry  and  heroism,  and  by  a  reflex  influence 
intensify  religion  in  the  home  churches. 

A  Verification  Proposed 

We  propose  a  test  for  measuring  what  contribution 
these  choice  and  master  spirits  of  the  age  have  made  to 
the  present  holdings  of  Christianity.  Archimedes  was 
so  pleased  with  his  discovery  of  a  method  of  ascertain- 
ing the  bulk  and  weight  of  an  object  that  in  the  streets 


FROM    THE   CENTENNIAL   PISGAH  121 

he  exclaimed,  "  Eureka !  "  His  plan  seems  to  have  been 
to  judge  of  a  thing  by  the  void  it  made  when  withdrawn. 
Apply,  then,  his  method,  and  indicate  in  thought  the  high- 
water  mark  of  Christianity,  and  then  eliminate  all  that 
these  earliest  missionaries  supplied,  and  the  subsidence 
will  tell  the  story.  There  would  be  a  noticeable  lower- 
ing of  the  water-mark  the  moment  you  extract  their 
initiative,  their  organization,  their  work,  and  their  early 
development  of  the  spirit  of  benevolence.  These  mis- 
sionaries, not  being  supported  by  individual  churches, 
occasioned  the  first  American  religious  get-together  cam- 
paign. Without  any  long  preparation  for  it,  the  churches 
took  a  practical  home  course  in  the  art  of  making  com- 
mon cause.  It  seems  that  a  man  determined  to  have  a 
hive  of  bees,  and  began  to  catch  them  one  by  one  in 
the  clover-fields  as  he  came  upon  them.  He  brought  them 
home  individually,  but  was  surprised  to  find  that,  though 
he  had  individuals,  he  had  not  what  is  known  as  a  swarm 
of  bees.  They  had  no  relationship.  There  was  no  bond 
of  sympathy.  There  was  no  unity.  Nothing  was  done. 
A  swarm  of  bees  must  be  an  entity.  They  must  have  a 
queen  and  be  a  colony,  be  united  in  an  idea,  and  have  a 
head.  The  earliest  missionaries  were  led  to  cement  a 
union  in  counsel  and  effort  which  developed  an  entirely 
new  esprit  de  corps.  Women  with  few  independent 
resources  set  up  their  "  cent "  societies,  and  when  at  the 
meeting  the  money  was  assembled  and  consecrated  and 
apportioned,  the  little  assembly  had  sometimes  almost 
the  spirit  and  solemnity  of  a  sacrament.  We  measure 
these  heroic  souls  in  another  negative  way.  Run  over 
the  history  of  the  church  and  recall  instances  when  she 
did  not  know  the  day  of  her  visitation,  and  allowed 
great  opportunities  to  slip  from  her  grasp  unused.  And 
then  turn  to  this  crisis  as  it  opened  and  beckoned  and  was 
promptly  recognized  and  honored  by  these  devoted  young 


122  THE   IMMORTAL   SEVEN 

people,  who  counted  not  their  lives  dear  unto  them  that 
they  might  testify  the  gospel  of  the  grace  of  God.  It 
demonstrated  to  the  church  practically  as  if  by  a  clinic 
that  the  force  which  the  church  possesses  is  amply  suf- 
ficient for  the  great  ends  of  her  existence  and  extension. 

The  Bridge-builders 

In  the  panorama  of  the  past  so  vividly  presented  by 
Judson  and  his  associates  we  see  with  new  clearness 
the  meaning  of  the  old  word  Pontifex,  "  bridge-builder/' 
exalting  it  into  its  Old  place  of  honor,  and  giving  Pontifex 
Maximus,  "  the  greatest,  the  best  bridge-builder,"  a  better 
meaning  than  it  ever  had  before.  How  to  build  a  bridge 
from  our  religious  strongholds  to  the  far-off,  almost 
mythical  confines  of  heathenism,  for  the  passage  of  im- 
mense benefits,  was  their  problem.  They  were  contriving 
means  of  access  to  heathen  people,  sitting  in  unbroken 
darkness,  bestial,  cruel,  shameless.  See  the  express  loads 
of  Bibles  that  have  gone  over  this  "  bridge  "  that  con- 
nects them  with  us  and  us  with  them,  and  the  immense 
freight  of  printing-presses  and  school  furniture.  Behold 
what  troops  of  missionaries  have  followed  since  the 
remoteness  was  bridged  between  our  goodly  heritage  and 
the  habitations  of  cruelty.  Using  a  bridge,  people  are 
not  careful  to  inquire  who  projected  it.  The  initial  agency 
in  founding  a  college  like  Harvard  or  Yale  becomes  soon 
a  reminiscence.  An  idea  or  a  gift  bestowed  upon  a  de- 
nomination is  a  boon  to  the  world.  All  that  is  good  in 
it  is  diffusive.  "  Take  the  lamp  of  life,  ask  counsel  if 
you  need  it,  but  find  your  own  way  in  the  darkness,  and 
we  will  send  you  oil." 

Seeing  the  Burning  Bush  and  Hearing  the  Voice 

The  missionary  quickening  was  at  the  first,  as  it  chiefly 
continues  to  be,  distinctively  a  young  people's  movement. 


•>  ■>  >     ->        * 


FROM    THE   CENTENNIAL   PISGAH  123 

We  have  seen  young  men  at  the  haystack,  young  men 
before  the  fathers  at  Bradford,  and  young  people  in  the 
"  Caravan  "  and  "  Harmony."  The  association  of  older 
ministers  did  not  originate  the  project  and  then  look 
around  for  young  men  to  carry  out  their  idea,  but  the 
conception  sprang  up  in  young  minds  and  was  com- 
municated by  them.  The  Student  Volunteer  Movement, 
the  Missionary  Education  Movement,  and  Training  Con- 
ferences illustrate  the  indebtedness  of  the  world  to  the 
initiative  of  the  young,  and  suggest  the  usual  source  of 
leadership.  The  Iowa  Band,  the  Illinois  Band,  the 
Dakota  Band,  the  Montana  Band,  all  had  their  genesis  in 
the  minds  of  young  men,  associated  together  at  one  time 
and  place  for  study.  It  was  the  only  way  they  could 
be  brought  into  circumstances  favorable  to  personal  ac- 
quaintance and  to  sympathetic  associated  action.  It  is 
the  new  blood,  the  new  force,  the  modern  method,  the 
grace  of  spontaneity,  the  original  note  that  seem  to-day 
heaven-sent  with  a  message  and  a  mission.  When  this 
suggestive,  creative,  inspirational  factor  is  lacking  for  a 
time  we  resort  to  shifts  in  administration,  to  more 
machinery  without  increase  of  boilers,  to  overworking 
our  politics  and  turning  to  the  government  for  what  is 
purely  causal,  which  simple  government  is  powerless  to 
provide,  seeing  that  law  is  only,  as  Emerson  shows,  a  mere 
memorandum. 

If  the  men  of  1812  had  been  obliged  to  study  the- 
ology, as  the  custom  had  been  up  to  their  time,  with 
various  pastors,  scattered  about  the  country,  the  action 
of  mind  on  mind  and  heart  on  heart,  the  contact,  the 
fellowship,  the  mutual  stimulus,  the  flow  of  sympathy, 
the  strength  received  and  imparted,  would  have  been  im- 
possible. The  idea,  the  heroic  resolve,  came  not  from 
the  teachers,  but  from  each  other.  In  the  main  pur- 
pose of  their  lives,  with  minds  quickened  by  study,  they 


124  THE   IMMORTAL   SEVEN 

educated  one  another.    Andover  assembled  them  and  they 
went  to  school  to  each  other. 

This  association  not  only  touched  the  springs  of  action 
in  them,  but  it  unified  them  and  made  their  combined 
power  effective  when  they  came  to  appeal  to  the  Asso- 
ciation and  to  the  churches.  From  the  start  they  never 
sought,  severally,  to  serve  God  alone.  The  missionary 
knows  nothing  of  a  solitary  religion.  He  must  find  com- 
panions or  make  them.  Friendship  is  not  only  a  great 
aid  to  business,  but  it  makes  just  so  many  more  oppor- 
tunities for  spiritual  activity  and  usefulness.  The  mis- 
sionary in  learning  a  new  language  finds  himself  con- 
fronted earliest  with  the  verb  "  to  love."  It  is  the  normal 
type  of  the  first  conjugation.  He  finds  too,  that  Chris- 
tianity does  not  seem  to  thrive,  it  hardly  exists,  least  of 
all  does  it  develop  its  genuine,  full  powers  apart  from 
an  ecclesiastical  organization.  He  discovers  that  man, 
left  to  his  unaided  reason,  needs  an  influence  from 
without  to  bring  him  to  a  full  knowledge  of  God  as  a 
Holy  Being  and  a  Saviour.  These  young  men  ordained 
in  Salem  not  only  fanned  the  missionary  flame  until  it 
burst  forth  into  a  steady  and  vigorous  blaze,  shedding 
a  brilliant  light  upon  the  benighted  myriads  east  of  the 
Indus,  but  reflexively,  they  started  fires  burning  in  every 
Christian  church  at  home.  They  formulated  practically 
the  principle,  which  is  a  fact,  that  if  one  person  is  called 
to  be  a  missionary,  other  persons  are  by  that  same 
identical  call  summoned  to  support  him.  And  it  has  been 
found,  from  the  first,  that  this  incidental  call  touches 
the  noblest  element  in  men  and  women.  For  a  program 
they  announced  that  a  bold  and  aggressive  policy  is  de- 
manded of  the  conductors  of  missionary  efforts,  and  that 
no  other  course  will  either  arouse  or  keep  alive  the 
benevolent  spirit  of  the  churches.  They  revealed  the  fact 
that  arduous  achievements,  such  as  the  transformation  of 


FROM    THE   CENTENNIAL   PISGAH  1 25 

fourteen  hundred  millions  of  human  beings  that  inhabit 
the  earth,  demand  a  powerful  motive. 

Touching  the  Nerve  of  Missions 

In  effecting  great  things  on  difficult  ground,  ordinary 
agencies,  though  excellent,  are  not  sufficient.  The  sum 
of  a  lot  of  inferior  motives  is  not,  in  actual  practice,  the 
equivalent  of  a  great  motive.  The  missionaries  have  kept 
the  religious  idea  in  the  ascendant,  whereas  the  undevout 
man,  in  an  age  that  is  prosperous  and  ambitious  for 
material  wealth,  simply  reverses  the  plain,  practical 
pungent,  quotable  epigram  of  Carey  so  as  to  magnify 
the  human  equation,  "  Attempt  great  things  for  God ; 
expect  great  things  from  God."  That  is  not  the  re- 
ligious order,  nor  was  it  William  Carey's.  Men  for  a 
fact  do  not  attempt  great  things,  unless  first  they  have 
vision,  faith,  and  incentive  to  put  them  in  motion.  The 
succession  as  given  by  Carey  is  the  only  practical,  effect- 
ive, fruitful  one,  "  Expect  great  things  from  God ;  attempt 
great  things  for  God."  That  is  the  established  spiritual 
order.  The  more  immediate  preparation  for  the  Hay- 
stack Meeting  came  through  a  strong,  religious  awakening 
in  Litchfield  County,  Connecticut,  from  which  Mills  and 
some  other  students  associated  with  him  came  to  Will- 
iams College.  From  the  commencement  in  1798  to  Feb- 
ruary, 1800,  there  was  but  one  professing  Christian  in 
that  institution.  In  the  transformation  that  came,  "  the 
brethren "  who  soon  reappear  at  Andover,  living  in 
the  midst  of  these  mighty  works,  did  not  fail  to  make 
the  ways  of  the  spirit  a  deep  and  special  study.  Mills 
and  Nettleton  were  born  the  same  day,  became  Chris- 
tians the  same  year,  were  extremely  sympathetic.  Nettle- 
ton,  like  Mills,  intended  to  become  a  foreign  missionary, 
but  had  first  to  pay  off  the  debts  incurred  by  his  educa- 
tion, and  became  at  once  so  useful  as  an  evangelist  in  the 


126  THE  IMMORTAL   SEVEN 

churches  that  it  was  shown  him  that  his  duty  was  here. 
When  he  entered  Yale  College,  he  was  the  only  pro- 
fessor of  religion  in  his  class.  When  the  times  of  re- 
freshing came  he  gave  his  attention  to  the  work  of  the 
spirit. 

Blow  upon  my  Garden  that  the  Spices  thereof  may  Floiv 
Out 

Out  of  these  revivals  came  the  missionary  uprising. 
In  dealing  with  the  outward,  writers  have  attributed  too 
little  to  that  which  produces  the  phenomena,  the  invisible 
sources  of  power.  Missionary  fervor  has  always  followed, 
says  W.  J.  Dawson,  "  in  the  wake  of  revivals."  In  asso- 
ciation with  these  men,  having  such  antecedents,  both 
Judson  and  Newell  had  their  first  experience  of  grace, 
showing  the  revival  spirit  that  then  pervaded  that  original 
seat  of  sacred  learning  which  itself  had  its  roots  in  a 
revival.  In  such  a  season  the  soul  seems  to  rouse  itself 
from  the  lethargy  of  sense  to  a  living  perception  of  the 
Unseen,  Spiritual,  and  Eternal,  when  great  truths  long 
disregarded  start  into  living  reality,  and  when  eternity  in 
its  eminence  absorbs  all  the  interests  of  time.  The  first 
of  the  young  men,  the  pillar  of  the  mission,  having  found 
the  lamp  that  lighted  his  way  to  the  cross,  held  as  his 
beau  ideal  among  men  Dr.  Edward  Dorr  Griffin,  a  con- 
spicuous revival  preacher  who  wanted  Judson  to  become 
his  associate  and  successor,  in  "  the  biggest  church  in 
Boston,"  as  Judson  himself  says.  Miss  Mary  Hasseltine, 
sister  of  Mrs.  Judson,  describes  Judson's  "  eloquence  and 
oratory  "  as  "  a  transcript  of  Doctor  Griffin's,"  and  Jud- 
son received  an  impulse  from  Doctor  Griffin's  preaching 
and  genius  and  type  Of  piety  which  had  a  salutary  effect 
on  him  all  his  living  days. 

When  the  earliest  missionaries  in  that  constructive 
period  entered  the  dark  places  of  the  earth  where  Satan's 


FROM    THE   CENTENNIAL    PISGAH  1 27 

seat  is,  the  formidableness  of  the  difficulties,  the  por- 
tentousness  of  the  discouragements,  the  inadequateness 
of  material  means,  threw  them  upon  their  own  and  their 
only  resource,  a  single-minded,  fervent  consciousness  of 
the  reality,  effectiveness,  and  sufficiency  of  the  powers 
of  the  world  to  come.  They  were  limited  in  the  range 
of  subjects  that  they  could  present,  they  were  confined  by 
the  necessity  of  the  case  to  certain  elementary  essentials. 
The  energies  of  a  few  heavenly  truths  when  set  out  with 
freshness  and  power  by  educated,  attractive,  consecrated 
men  forcibly  open  a  way  to  the  human  heart,  and  hearers 
become  new  creatures  with  a  new  spirit,  a  new  experi- 
ence, a  new  testimony,  and  a  new  song. 

Till  David  touched  his  sacred  lyre, 
In  silence  lay  the  unbreathing  wire; 
But  when  he  swept  its  chords  along, 
Even  angels  stooped  to  hear  the  song. 

So  sleeps  the  soul  till  thou,  O  Lord! 
Shall  deign  to  touch  its  lifeless  chord — 
Till  waked  by  thee,  its  breath  shall  rise, 
In  music  worthy  of  the  skies. 


VII 


SALEM,  CENTER  OF  PILGRIMAGE 


VII 

SALEM,   CENTER  OF  PILGRIMAGE 

WHEN  admirers  of  the  Immortal  Seven  turn  their 
pilgrim  feet  to  Salem  the  effect  of  the  visit  is 
heightened  by  finding  so  many  other  devotees  here,  thirty 
thousand  in  a  year,  upon  an  analogous  errand.  To 
those  who  come  from  the  West,  Salem  seems  redolent 
of  the  past.  Many  people  go  to  Europe  to  find  this 
flavor.    Those  having  a  shorter  holiday  come  here. 

Curiosity  gives  to  the  mind  a  peculiar  interest  in 
origins.  The  first  of  its  kind  has  a  fame  in  that  fact, 
particularly  if  the  series  is  well  known  or  long  or  bril- 
liant or  useful.  Adam  is  indebted  for  his  great  distinc- 
tion to  the  unadorned  fact  of  having  been  first.  The 
family's  attention  is  given  to  a  child's  first  step  and  to 
his  first  word.  It  was  recently  said  of  an  aged  citizen 
at  his  burial  that  he  was  the  first  man  in  his  county  to 
enlist.  Such  a  man  stands  for  more  than  a  single  recruit, 
and  this  truth  is  recognized  in  every  movement  that 
implies  concerted  action.  Happy  is  the  man  who  is 
permitted  to  set  the  example  and  start  the  movement! 
In  setting  out  the  true  scale  of  sovereign  honors,  which 
has  five  grades,  Lord  Bacon  gives  first  place  to  those 
who  are  historic  founders. 

In  Salem  occurred  not  only  the  ordination  of  the  first 
minister  in  America;  it  was  here  that  the  first  church 
formed  in  the  Western  world  was  organized.  Remember- 
ing that  the  ballot  is  the  gist  of  democracy,  at  this  ordina- 
tion, which  "  was  the  imposition  of  hands  on  Mr.  Higgin- 
son,"  we  have  the  first  use  of  the  ballot  in  the  Western 

131 


132  THE   IMMORTAL   SEVEN 

world.  Aided  by  Hawthorne's  power  of  bringing  the  past 
into  the  present,  we  can  now  see  Pastor  Higginson  as  he 
"  wet  his  palm  and  laid  it  on  the  brow  of  the  first  twin- 
born  child."  Such  a  proportion  of  the  national  revenue  is 
now  turned  into  pensions,  twenty-five  million  dollars 
by  a  single  recent  act,  we  are  interested  to  find  the  first 
pensioner  in  Salem.  In  1817  President  Monroe  saw  here 
an  aged,  decrepit,  Revolutionary  soldier,  dependent  on 
the  town,  and,  on  returning  to  Washington,  laid  the 
matter  before  Congress,  with  a  result  which  has  since 
brought  comfort  and  happiness  to  heroic,  sacrificial 
souls  who  have  jeoparded  their  lives  in  the  high  places 
of  the  field. 

Salem,  the  Home  of  History 

The  invention  which  has  transformed  the  busy  street 
into  a  white  way  may  be  traced  to  No.  11  Pearl  Street 
in  Salem,  where  the  first  electric  light  was  shown  by 
Prof.  Moses  G.  Farmer  in  1859.  When  the  telephone 
had  been  perfected  in  a  cellar  at  292  Essex  Street,  and 
the  patent  had  been  granted — No.  174,465,  "  the  most 
valuable  single  patent  ever  issued  in  any  country  " — the 
first  telephone  message  ever  transmitted  in  a  practical 
test  was  sent  on  the  night  of  February  12,  1877,  by  the 
present  President  of  the  Merchants  Bank.  Joseph  Dixon, 
the  first  manufacturer  of  lead  pencils,  -started  his  business 
in  Salem;  John  Rogers,  who  gave  to  sculpture  a  certain 
popular  turn,  made  his  initial  experiments  with  clay  in 
this  town.  Mr.  Derby  and  others  of  Salem  were  the 
first  to  display  our  ensign  at  Calcutta,  where  the  Im- 
mortal Seven  first  landed  in  India ;  in  the  Isle  of  France, 
where  Harriet  Newell  died;  at  Bombay,  where  Hall  and 
Nott  labored ;  in  Siam,  where  the  beginning  of  missionary 
enterprise  was  undertaken  by  Mrs.  Judson;  at  Zanzibar; 
in  China;  in  the  Sandwich  Islands;  and  at  other  places 


SALEM,   CENTER  OF   PILGRIMAGE  1 33 

beyond  the  vast  illimitable  ocean,  whose  breadth  was 
grotesquely  exaggerated  in  all  the  charts  of  that  early 
day.  According  to  the  records  of  consulates  in  Africa, 
the  last  shipments  of  slaves  were  at  the  time  of  Salem's 
supremacy  on  the  sea  in  vessels  hailing  from  this  port. 
The  first  armed  resistance  to  British  authority  was  at 
the  North  Bridge  in  Salem,  the  "  odious  "  troops  being 
sent  here  for  the  same  purpose  that  later  took  them  to 
Lexington  and  Concord.  Colonel  Leslie  was  afterward 
court-martialed  for  his  relation  to  this  fiasco,  showing 
how  the  British  interpreted  the  outcome  of  the  day. 
The  place  is  hallowed  not  only  by  the  fact  that  the  first 
foreign  missionaries  were  sent  from  it,  but  also  for  the 
reason  that  the  first  home  missionary  was  from  Salem. 
If  one  have  the  historic  imagination,  the  voice  from  the 
past,  vibrant  with  the  life  that  called  so  much  into  being, 
sounds  in  his  soul  as  he  lingers  about  the  residence  of 
this  first  home  missionary,  for  the  building,  erected  in 
1634,  the  oldest  in  Salem,  like  the  venerable  bakery 
which  the  tooth  of  time  has  still  spared,  was  contem- 
porary with  John  Bunyan. 

India  and  the  Indians 

When  engaged  in  setting  out  the  beginnings  of  foreign 
missionary  operations,  certain  minds  are  sure  to  recur 
to  the  question,  why,  instead  of  going  to  the  other  side 
of  the  globe  to  convert  the  heathen  there,  did  not  the 
American  churches  and  the  missionaries  concern  them- 
selves with  Christianizing  the  heathen  at  our  own  doors, 
for  the  red  men  of  this  country  were  unevangelized  ? 
We  are  thus  summoned  to  indicate  the  fact  that  the 
church  has  never  been  oblivious  of  her  duty  to  the 
bronzed  stoics  of  the  woods';  that  Dr.  Samuel  Worcester, 
the  prime  mover  in  the  ordination  of  the  first  foreign 
missionaries  at  Salem,  whose  house  in  this  city  on  Lynde 


134  THE   IMMORTAL   SEVEN 

Street  is  visited  by  pilgrims  to  this  missionary  shrine 
as  the  place  where  so  many  of  Judson's  conferences 
were  held,  himself  died  at  Brainerd,  a  missionary  station 
among  the  Indians  on  the  banks  of  the  Chickamauga, 
seven  miles  from  the  brow  of  Lookout  Mountain,  where 
was  fought  behind  a  thick  curtain  that  mysterious,  de- 
cisive battle  above  the  clouds.  A  neighboring  height  still 
bears  the  name  of  Missionary  Ridge,  up  whose  broken 
and  crumbling  side  eighteen  thousand  men  advanced 
and  did  what  no  commander  had  the  hardihood  to  order, 
and  what  all  strategists  dismissed  from  their  thoughts, 
because  it  was  deemed  impossible.  Having  made  the 
latter  part  of  his  journey,  the  greater  portion  of  three 
hundred  miles,  through  uninhabited  wilds,  when  at  last, 
as  he  was  borne  by  two  brethren  from  his  carriage  to 
the  Indian  Mission,  it  was  said  to  him,  "  You  have 
almost  got  through  the  wilderness" — "  This  may  be  true 
in  more  respects  than  one,"  he  significantly  replied;  and 
so  the  event  proved,  for  his  new  associates  and  the  Indian 
converts  laid  him  to  rest  as  his  spirit  had  taken  its  flight 
to  heaven. 

From  the  earliest  settlement  of  New  England,  no  less 
a  character  than  Roger  Williams,  who  lived  before  and  yet 
for  his  time,  became  the  pioneer  in  a  work  of  home 
evangelization.  More  light  has  broken  forth  from  his 
melancholy  looking  abode  here,  than  from  scores  of 
cathedrals  and  sanctuaries.  It  is  affecting  to  think  that 
he  placed  a  mortgage  upon  this  somber,  primitive  house, 
and  his  friends,  the  Indians,  received  the  money,  he 
saving  barely  the  amount  needed  to  remove  his  family 
from  this  place  to  the  shores  of  the  Narragansett.  "  In 
Salem  every  person  loved  Mr.  Williams,"  says  Doctor 
Bentley.  "  My  soul's  desire,"*  says  Williams,  "  was  to  do 
good  to  the  natives'  souls."  "  He  understood  the  In- 
dians better  than  any  man  of  his  age."     He  was  the 


SALEM,   CENTER  OF   PILGRIMAGE  1 35 

pioneer  in  the  actual  work  of  all  home  evangelization. 
A  company  of  intelligent  gentlemen  have  agreed  that 
Jonathan  Edwards  lived  the  most  successful  life  in  this 
country,  achieving  „  an  exemplary  spiritual  experience, 
rendering  the  greatest  service  to  his  generation,  pro- 
ducing when  at  the  height  of  his  unequaled  power  the 
foremost  product  of  the  American  mind.  He  was  at 
this  time  a  missionary  to  the  Indians,  who,  as  the 
monument  at  Stockbridge  recites,  "  were  the  friends  of 
our  fathers."  So  Williams,  the  tutelary  genius  of  the 
aborigines,  was  a  great  man  in  an  age  of  great  men. 
He  was  born  when  Shakespeare,  by  the  voice  of  the 
whole  civilized  world,  was  placing  his  name  first  in  all 
literature  and  receiving  honor  but  little  this  side  of 
idolatry.  On  his  visits  to  England,  Roger  Williams,  in 
the  society  of  scholars  and  statesmen,  was  denoted  by 
his  friendships.  He  became  the  advocate  of  the  new 
idea  that  his  soul  was  his  own,  that  governments  are 
concerned  with  civil  things  only,  and  not  with  faith  nor 
worship  nor  conscience,  that  religion  can  speak  to  the 
hearts  of  men  with  a  voice  of  power  which  owes  no 
part  of  its  emphasis  to  human  laws.  Impelled  to  go 
forth,  banished,  or,  in  the  euphemism  of  Winthrop, 
"  enlarged,"  he  became  the  John  the  Baptist  of  this 
heaven-born  conception,  and  the  aborigines,  those  ravens 
of  the  wilderness,  fed  him. 

A  Kingdom  of  Darkness 

Referring  to  his  initial  work  for  the  homeland,  Roger 
Williams  states  that  "  God  was  pleased  to  give  me  a  pain- 
ful, patient  spirit  to  lodge  with  the  aboriginal  inhabitants 
of  our  land  in  their  filthy,  smoky  holes  and  to  gain  their 
tongue."  Many  times  he  states  that  he  "preached  to 
great  numbers  to  their  great  delight  and  great  convic- 
tion."    He  writes  to  Governor  Winthrop  a  report  of 


I36  THE   IMMORTAL   SEVEN 

"  many  a  poor  Indian's  son  inquiring  after  God."  It 
was  not  until  thirteen  years  after  this,  October  28,  1646, 
that  John  Eliot,  known  as  the  apostle  of  the  Indians, 
began  his  work  of  preaching  to  them,  and  so  we  go  on 
to  class  among  the  "  firsts "  Roger  Williams'  famous 
"  Key  to  the  Indian  Language."  He  made  the  earliest 
systematic  attempt  to  translate  this  unwritten  language 
into  a  civilized  tongue.  This  preceded  Eliot's  work  on 
the  same  subject  and  his  translation  of  the  Bible  into 
the  Indian  language  by  twenty  years.  Williams  was  an 
associate  of  Cromwell,  a  personal  friend  of  Hampden, 
Sydney,  and  Vane,  and  a  companion  of  the  author  of 
"  Paradise  Lost."  Ezekiel  Hollimon,  a  layman,  an  early 
resident  of  Salem  who  became  a  preacher,  baptized  Will- 
iams, and  then  Williams  baptized  "  Hollimon  and  some 
ten  more,"  whom  he  organized  into  a  church,  which  sup- 
plies the  singular  fact  that  men  going  from  Salem  occa- 
sioned, not  only  the  first  American  Baptist  Foreign 
Mission  Society,  but  they  also  instituted  the  first  home 
missionary  work,  and  the  first  Baptist  community,  and 
organized  the  first  Baptist  church  in  America,  which 
was  the  second  church  of  that  persuasion  in  the  British 
Empire.  So  indomitable  was  the  patriotism  of  Roger 
Williams  that  he  was,  at  seventy-seven,  a  captain  of 
militia.  At  Providence,  where  he  last  built  his  house, 
there  they  made  his  grave.  The  vitality  of  his  spirit 
appears  everywhere  in  the  prevailing  principle  of  re- 
ligious tolerance  in  which  he  was  the  pioneer.  The  abso- 
lute vitality  of  nature  further  appears.  In  death  as  in 
life  the  house  of  houses  which  we  call  his  body,  as  if 
touched  by  his  own  tender,  undying  purpose,  seemed 
determined  to  live  for  others  by  his  rule  of  each  for  all. 
After  one  hundred  and  seventy-seven  years  it  was  found 
that  the  tree  which  had  grown  at  the  foot  of  his  grave, 
rising  like  the  young  Phoenix  out  of  the  ashes  of  the 


SALEM,   CENTER   OF   PILGRIMAGE  I37 

past,  had  sent  a  root  and  shaped  it  like  a  human  form  just 
where  he  had  lain.  Even  in  death  he  was  helping  some- 
thing else  to  live.  Self-sacrifice  is,  in  effect,  the  law  of 
nature,  as  it  is  the  law  of  grace: 

Enough  to  know  that,  through  the  winter's  frost, 
And  summer's  heat,  no  seed  of  truth  is  lost, 
And  every  duty  pays  at  last  its  cost. 

The  Varied  Interest 

The  home  of  Williams,  when  pastor  of  the  First  Church 
in  Salem,  was  occupied  later  by  Judge  Corwin  and  be- 
came for  convenience  to  him  the  place  of  the  examina- 
tion of  a  number  of  persons  charged  with  practising 
"  certain  detestable  arts  called  witchcraft  and  sorcery ," 
Abroad  in  Salem  at  the  time  was  a  community  fever,  an 
evil  epidemic,  a  hysteria,  a  frenzy,  a  fanaticism,  an 
execrable  sort  of  hypnotism  which  opened  the  door  to 
horrors  that  our  history  blushes  to  record.  With  super- 
stition running  rampant,  a  belief  in  the  power  to  work 
evil  by  a  sympathetic  bond,  or  by  the  collusion  of  spirits, 
or  by  legerdemain,  or  by  palmistry,  seems  to  have  been 
almost  universal.  More  than  thirty  thousand  persons 
were  executed  in  England  for  witchcraft,  in  which  John 
Wesley  believed,  and  our  own  Governor  Endicott,  and 
Winthrop,  and  Brads treet,  and  Blackstone,  and  Mat- 
thew Hale,  and  Bacon.  For  a  fact  the  Salem  Puritans 
were  less  guilty  than  their  European  contemporaries. 
If  one  man,  Rev.  Samuel  Parris  of  Salem  Village,  had 
possessed  a  sense  of  humor,  the  calamity  would  have 
been  averted.  If  entertainment  or  amusement  had  been 
provided  for  the  girls  that  first  learned  to  practise  the 
black  arts,  our  shame  would  have  been  counteracted. 
Visitors  to  Salem  assume  that  the  peculiarity  was  in  the 
witches,  whereas  the  exalted  character  of  the  persons 
accused — especially  of  Mrs.  Hale,  wife  of  the  pastor  of 


I38  THE   IMMORTAL   SEVEN 

the  First  Church  in  Beverly,  and  of  Martha  Corey,  who 
concluded  her  life  with  an  eminent  prayer  on  the  ladder, 
and  of  Mary  Estey,  called  "  The  Self-forgetful  "  because, 
while  in  prison,  in  a  petition  to  Governor  Phips  she  asked 
not  for  her  own  life,  but  that  other  innocent  blood  might 
not  be  shed — brought  about  a  general  jail-delivery  which 
had  all  too  long  been  delayed.  The  derangement  came  from 
testimony  and  from  the  current  belief  that  two  or  three 
witnesses  would  establish  a  fact,  whereas  we  now  know 
it  to  be  true  that  some  persons  are  not  temperamentally 
qualified  to  give  testimony.  Thus  no  one  could  be  safe 
before  this  awful  inquisition,  at  which  no  counsel  was 
allowed  the  witches.  But  men  should  be  judged  accord- 
ing to  the  light  of  the  age  in  which  they  lived;  and  at 
that  time  they  had  not  learned  that  men  may  be  sincere 
in  their  practice  of  a  godless  godliness  and  still  be  wrong. 
The  presence  here  of  the  witch-pins  with  which  the 
accused  were  said  to  have  afflicted  their  subjects,  and  of 
the  death-warrant  of  Bridget  Bishop,  in  which  the  sheriff 
states  that  he  had  hung  Bridget  Bishop  until  she  was  dead 
and  buried  in  the  ground,  and  of  Gallows  Hill,  where 
nineteen  witches  were  executed  by  a  young  man  named 
Corwin  only  twenty-six  years  old,  eight  of  the  victims 
in  one  September  afternoon,  has  given  to  Salem  a  holiday 
relation  to  the  whole  country,  and  not  to  America  alone. 
It  is  a  bewitching  experience  late  at  night  to  climb  the 
lonesome  elevation  of  Gallows  Hill,  and  feel  that  on 
this  neglected  spot  the  innocent,  after  a  semblance  of 
trial,  were  put  to  death,  as  at  the  place  called  Calvary. 
The  illusion  is  the  more  striking  for  the  reason  that  two 
leaning  telephone  poles  long  stood  here,  having  but  a 
single  cross-bar  bearing  wires,  and  at  night  the  wires 
became  invisible  so  that  the  two  crosses  marked  that 
bald  eminence  which  must  now  stand  as  a  frowning 
memorial  forever  on  Salem's  sunset  side.    Samuel  Sewall, 


SALEM,    CENTER   OF   PILGRIMAGE  1 39 

heir  to  thirty  thousand  pounds  in  sixpences,  who  as  a 
judge  concurred  in  the  sentence  of  the  witches,  but  after- 
ward by  his  own  motion  made  confession  of  his  error 
on  a  day  of  public  fast  at  the  Old  South  Church  in 
Boston,  of  which  he  was  one  of  the  brightest  ornaments, 
exhibits  the  reversals  of  time.  Thus  too,  Dr.  George 
B.  Cheever,  a  pastor  in  Salem,  wrote  the  tract,  "  Deacon 
Giles'  Distillery,,,  and  was  tried  and  imprisoned  for  it, 
but  lived  to  receive  from  a  son  of  the  actual  Deacon 
Giles  a  letter  in  which  he  referred  to  that  tract  as  the 
means  of  his  conversion. 

Racy  of  the  Soil 

Salem  is  greatly  distinguished  by  the  noble  children  she 
has  borne:  Bowditch,  Prescott,  Story,  Joseph  H.  Choate, 
and  the  inimitable  Hawthorne,  the  greatest  genius  Amer- 
ica has  produced,  whose  works,  with  some  of  Long- 
fellow's poetry  and  certain  sentiments  of  Webster  and 
Lincoln,  constitute  the  most  durable  product  of  the 
American  mind.  Hawthorne,  like  Edwards  and  Frank- 
lin and  Hamilton,  had  an  original  intellect.  He  was 
"  the  brightest  jewel  in  Salem's  crown."  He  is  the  repre- 
sentative of  the  essential  spirit  and  conscience  of  New 
England.  His  characters  are  typical.  John  Bunyan  is 
not  more  at  home  in  the  world  of  the  interior  life.  With- 
out theological  intent,  such  an  original  painter  of  real 
life  is  he,  that  his  vivid  conception  of  the  spiritual  world, 
and  so  his  theology,  as  set  out  in  his  masterpieces,  "  The 
Scarlet  Letter,"  and  particularly  "  The  Marble  Faun," 
suggest  the  touch  of  the  sacramental  coal  and  make  the 
truth  seem  like  a  fire  shut  up  in  his  heart.  His  theology 
is  old-fashioned  and  to-day  in  disuse,  but  not  otherwise 
can  genius  keep  literature  true  to  the  facts  of  life.  Be- 
cause of  his  writings  Salem  has  come  to  be  called  by 
our  visiting  teachers  and  ministers,  The  Home  of  the 


I40  THE   IMMORTAL   SEVEN 

Conscience.  In  the  famous  suicide-is-confession  case 
conscience  was  let  loose  upon  certain  degenerates  who, 
being  leaders  in  an  infidel  club,  did  not  know  they  had  any. 

An  End  of  Stolid,  Stoical  Indifference 

In  this  case  nine  weeks  had  elapsed  without  educing 
much  real  evidence,  and  Richard  Crowninshield,  a  des- 
perate, hardened,  remorseless  murderer  maintained,  even 
in  prison,  a  cheerful  and  confident  demeanor  and  slept  so 
well  that  he  did  not  hear  the  throwing  of  bolts  and 
opening  of  doors.  Said  the  jailer  calmly,  "  Did  you  hear 
that  noise  last  night?"  "No!  I  slept  well.  What 
noise?"  "Why,  Frank  Knapp  was  brought  in."  The 
strong,  guilty  man  put  his  hand  to  the  wall  to  steady 
himself.  Unable  to  conceal  his  emotion,  he  fell  senseless 
to  the  bed.  Conscience,  remorse,  and  despair  did  their 
work,  and  with  the  light  of  a  strange  morning  after  a 
night  of  horror  came  the  confession — he  was  self -mur- 
dered. And  Joseph  Knapp,  the  instigator  of  the  crime, 
had  in  his  hands  the  actual  letter  which  brought  the  whole 
conspiracy  to  light,  and  could  have  destroyed  it,  but  con- 
sciousness of  guilt  so  confounded  his  faculties  that  he 
stupidly  handed  it  back  to  his  father.  If  Joseph  Knapp 
had  not  later  withdrawn  his  testimony,  made  on  the 
third  day  of  his  imprisonment,  neither  he  nor  his  brother 
Frank  could  have  been  convicted,  and  so  must  have 
escaped  their  doom  of  being  hung  in  the  yard  just  north 
of  the  Salem  Jail  in  the  presence  of  four  thousand  people. 
By  the  law  of  that  time,  which  this  trial  had  the  effect 
to  change  in  large  measure  for  the  whole  country,  an 
accessory  could  not  be  tried  until  the  principal  had  been 
convicted,  and  the  accessory  must  have  been  present 
actually  or  constructively  as  an  aider  or  abetter  ready  to 
render  assistance  if  necessary.  Frank  Knapp  was  proved 
to  have  been  in  Brown  Street  back  of  the  Captain  White 


SALEM,   CENTER   OF   PILGRIMAGE  I41 

mansion,  but  not  until  after  the  murder  had  been  com- 
mitted by  Crowninshield,  who  had  purposely  told  him  to 
go  home  and  to  go  to  bed,  which  he  did,  and  only  came 
out  later,  secretly-,  to  learn  if  the  deed  was  accomplished  ; 
on  the  conviction  of  Frank  Knapp,  Joseph  was  afterward 
tried  as  an  accessory,  and  his  execution  closed  the  so-called 
Tragedy  of  the  Conscience.  Webster  adopted  an  aggres- 
sive program  and  won.  His  opponents,  without  putting 
Joseph  Knapp  forward,  kept  only  on  the  defensive  and 
proved  anew  that  the  army  that  stays  in  its  intrench- 
ments  will  sooner  or  later  be  beaten.  Under  terrible 
conditions  Webster  expressed  a  willingness  to  aid  the 
jury  in  finding  the  guilty  party,  and  so,  instead  of  figuring 
in  the  case  as  a  prosecuting  attorney,  he  was  practically, 
in  power  and  sympathy,  a  thirteenth  juryman  within  the 
panel.  Webster,  having  been  brought  into  the  case  by 
Stephen  White,  was  accompanied  on  visits  to  Salem  by 
his  son  Fletcher,  the  gallant  colonel  of  the  Civil  War. 
This  had  the  effect  to  unite  the  Webster  family  and 
Salem  by  the  marriage  of  Fletcher  Webster  to  the  daugh- 
ter of  Stephen  White,  who  lived  in  the  Lord  mansion 
on  Washington  Square. 

Sightseers  Linger  and  Leave  Reluctantly 

When  Dean  Stanley  was  asked  one  day  whether  he 
could  fix  the  most  memorable  hour  of  his  life,  whether 
of  all  he  had  heard  and  seen  throughout  the  world  (for 
he  had  been  a  great  traveler)  he  could  name  an  occasion 
when  historical  associations  had  been  most  vivid,  his 
reply  was  surprisingly  ready.  Without  hesitation,  he 
named  Salem  in  Massachusetts  as  the  place,  and  a  gather- 
ing of  the  descendants  of  the  founders  of  the  republic 
of  the  United  States  as  the  occasion  on  which  his  enjoy- 
ment had  been  fullest.  "  For,"  said  he,  "  we  read  of 
Charlemagne  and  others  with  no  perfect  sense  of  reality ; 


142  THE   IMMORTAL   SEVEN 

but  at  Salem,  there  they  sat,  the  undoubted  descendants, 
wearing  the  very  names  of  the  founders  of  a  greater 
state."  "  I  could  not  help  thinking  when  reviewing 
Athens,"  said  President  Eliot,  of  Harvard,  at  the  Fiftieth 
Anniversary  of  the  founding  of  the  Essex  Institute,  "  that 
if  you  take  one  building  out  of  Athens  there  is  nothing  in 
Athens  to  compare  in  point  of  interest  with  Salem,  Massa- 
chusetts." He  did  not  qualify  or  explain  his  statement. 
He  may  have  had  in  mind  the  removal  of  the  Elgin 
Marbles  to  the  British  Museum,  which  makes  it  possible 
to  study  Athens  better  in  London  than  in  Athens,  in  the 
same  way  that  a  person  sees  many  things  from  Pompeii 
better  in  Naples  than  in  the  buried  city  itself. 

It  is  remarkable  that  Salem's  two  highest  grounds  of 
distinction,  one  relating  to  the  world's  religious  welfare, 
the  other  touching  the  national  weal,  should  both  be  asso- 
ciated with  the  year  1812.  The  ordination  of  the  first 
American  foreign  missionaries  will  attract,  as  suggested 
by  the  Columbian  Exposition  and  by  the  celebration  at 
Jamestown,  a  more  significant  recognition  as  the  years 
show  its  increasing  fruitage  and  as  the  initial  event  is 
estimated  in  terms  of  what  it  conditioned,  and  not  alone 
in  terms  of  what  it  was. 

A  City  of  Peace 

As  the  world  now  knows,  the  war  of  1812  came  to  a 
termination  very  favorable  to  the  United  States,  because 
the  inroads  on  English  commerce  were  such  as  to  create 
among  English  merchants  a  sentiment  so  hostile  to  the 
war  that  its  prosecution  was  impracticable.  This  his- 
torical fact  was  set  out  with  great  clearness  by  Senator 
Hoar,  and  demonstrated  by  Captain  Mahan.  Yankee 
privateers  had  penetrated  into  the  Mediterranean,  and 
threatened  the  destruction  of  British  commerce  even  in 
those  waters.    No  other  city  did  so  much,  and  none  had 


SALEM,   CENTER  OF  PILGRIMAGE  143 

it  in  hev  power  to  do  so  much  to  bring  those  unhappy 
hostilities  to  a  full  period,  as  Salem.  In  a  struggle  with 
a  powerful  maritime  nation,  New  York,  Boston,  Balti- 
more, and  Norfolk  were  occupied  at  the  time  of  the 
Revolution  by  the  enemy  and  nearly  ruined,  so  the  main 
reliance  of  the  country  was  on  the  shipping  of  Salem 
and  its  vicinity.  During  the  contest  there  were  sent  out 
from  this  port  a  hundred  and  fifty-eight  vessels  which 
captured  four  hundred  and  forty-five  prizes.  The  amount 
of  money  thus  distributed  in  Salem,  when  considered  in 
connection  with  the  fact  that  a  dollar  went  so  much 
farther  in  those  days,  accounts  for  Salem's  reputation 
from  the  first  of  having  been  so  rich  and  complacent. 
The  ship  "  America,"  built  in  1804,  brought  in  prizes  to 
the  value  of  over  a  million  dollars.  The  "  Essex," 
launched  in  September,  1799,  the  fastest  among  the  ships, 
captured  property  to  the  amount  of  over  two  million 
dollars.  On  an  investment  of  fifty  thousand  dollars  the 
ship  "  Friendship  "  cleared  two  hundred  thousand  dollars. 
Captain  Samuel  Page,  of  Salem,  had  ten  children,  and 
named  a  ship  for  every  one  of  them.  Captain  Peabody 
named  a  ship  for  every  member  of  his  family,  and  for 
his  third  son,  the  ship  "  George,"  an  Argonaut  of  trade, 
was  named,  which  was  built  for  a  privateer.  She  made 
half  a  million  dollars  for  her  owner,  Mr.  Peabody,  and 
paid  in  the  Salem  Custom  House  in  duties  on  imports 
$651,744.  On  her  first  voyage  hardly  any  man  on  board 
of  her  was  twenty-one  years  of  age.  Mrs.  Judson  speaks 
of  the  captain  of  the  "  Caravan "  as  "  a  young  gentle- 
man of  an  amiable  disposition  and  of  pleasing  manner." 
She  makes  much  of  the  fact  that  he  and  the  other  officers 
attended  the  services  during  the  long  voyage.  She  pic- 
tures them  as  having  fine  breeding,  observing  the  ameni- 
ties of  life,  and  yet  holding  their  high  and  responsible 
positions. 


144  THE   IMMORTAL   SEVEN 

The  point  Mrs.  Judson  made  touching  the  youthfulness 
of  the  captain  and  officers  and  seamen  is  borne  out  by  the 
facts  as  found  in  all  the  ships  from  Salem  of  those  days. 
The  seamen  were  not  only  of  native  stock,  but  of  the 
best  blood  of  New  England,  distinctly  well-born.  They 
were  largely  the  sons  of  the  original  settlers,  and  in- 
herited the  spirit  of  daring,  the  purpose,  and  the  resolve 
which  had  possession  of  a  new  country  and  had  laid 
the  foundations  of  great  material  prosperity  and  the 
advancement  of  our  civilization.  They  challenge  our 
admiration  in  that  all  hands,  including  captains  and  of- 
ficers, were  often  as  young  as  the  boys  of  the  present 
time  who  are  scarcely  out  of  their  school  days.  Neither 
Capt.  Nathaniel  Silsbee,  nor  his  first  mate  Charles  Derby, 
nor  his  second  mate  Richard  J.  Cleveland,  was  twenty 
years  old,  and  yet  these  brave  boys  carried  ship  and  cargo 
safely  to  their  destination  with  imperfect  mathematical 
instruments,  and  with  no  charts  but  of  their  own  making, 
and  returned  with  a  cargo  which  realized  four  or  five 
times  all  of  the  original  capital.  Such  young  men  were 
with  West  in  his  daring  exploit  when  in  the  darkness  of 
the  night  he  cut  his  prize  out  of  a  British  harbor  under 
the  guns  of  the  enemy.  The  armed  ships  of  Salem  inter- 
cepted the  supply-vessels  sent  from  England  and  Nova 
Scotia  to  the  troops  in  Boston  and  New  York.  They 
cruised  in  the  Bay  of  Biscay  and  in  the  English  and  Irish 
Channels,  thus  raising  the  rate  on  British  ships  to  twenty- 
three  per  cent,  and  compelling  England  to  employ  most 
of  her  navy  in  convoying  merchantmen.  The  crews  on 
ships  leaving  Salem  were  incredibly  large,  as  sometimes, 
from  the  beginning  of  the  voyage,  they  would  need  to 
place  prize-masters  and  prize-crews  on  captured  vessels 
to  send  them  to  port,  this  to  be  repeated  a  dozen  times. 
As  the  first  prize  in  the  series  would  sometimes  sell  for 
$100,000,  each  man  had  enormous  reward. 


SALEM,   CENTER  OF   PILGRIMAGE  I45 

The  Old  Town  by  the  Sea 

The  sun  did  not  shine  on  a  more  prosperous  town. 
Salem  Harbor  was  a  forest  of  masts,  and  had  the  most 
extensive  commerce  of  any  American  port.  She  always 
had  her  own  characteristic  note,  and  unquestionably  this 
is  the  reason  the  place  has  so  many  namesakes.  There 
are  thirty  of  them  in  the  United  States.  The  Colonial 
mansions  have  a  peculiar  impressiveness  of  beauty  and 
dignity.  The  sumptuous  homes  were  fenced  or  hedged 
always.  The  grounds  were  private.  Provincetown  and 
Plymouth  have  been  duly  honored  with  monuments  to 
the  Pilgrims,  and  Cape  Ann  with  a  monument  to  the 
Puritans,  for  at  Fort  Stage  Park  in  Gloucester  a  boulder 
is  marked  by  a  tablet.  Salem  stood  next  in  order  for  the 
historic  distinction,  and  Dr.  J.  Ackerman  Coles  has  set 
up  a  mile-stone  in  honor  of  the  immortal  names  that  were 
not  born  to  die.  To  the  great  chorus  of  admiration  which 
has  been  rising  for  a  hundred  years,  we  add  our  voices  as 
fresh  commemorative  honors  are  brought  to  this  Antioch, 
Avhere  American  disciples  were  first  called  missionaries, 
with  the  hope  that  this  spot  pressed  by  their  Pilgrim  feet 
may  be  forever  hallowed  ground,  consecrated  as  it  has 
been  by  the  prayers  and  baptized  by  the  tears  of  devoted 
men. 

The  Century's  Capstone1 

We  almost  protest  a  place  with  sacred  associations  to 
mankind  that  is  unmarked  by  monument  or  tablet.    Think 

xTo  James  L.  Hill,  D.  D.  Dear  Doctor  Hill:  Your  very  interesting 
article,  "  A  Missionary  Shrine,"  in  "  Missions "  for  April,  is  responsible 
for  my  inquiring  if  the  old  Tabernacle  Church,  in  Salem,  Massachusetts,  has 
a  bell  in  its  tower.  If  it  has  not,  it  will  afford  me  much  pleasure  to  have 
cast  a  bronze  Meneely  bell  for  same,  as  a  memorial  of  the  "  Historic  Place 
where  Adoniram  Judson  and  his  four  companions  were  ordained  as  mis- 
sionaries to  foreign  lands."  The  names  of  the  five  would  be  cast  on  the 
bronze  bell.  I,  of  course,  would  bear  all  expenses  connected  with  the 
delivery  and  hanging  of  said  bell.  With  friendly  regards,  I  am,  yours 
very  sincerely,  J.  Ackerman  Coles. 

My  Dear  Doctor  Hill:  You  are  a  most  excellent  pleader.  You  have 
won  your  case.     I  and  my  architect  will  go  at  once  to  work  and  prepare  a 


I46  THE   IMMORTAL   SEVEN 

of  Jamestown,  or  Bunker  Hill,  or  Gettysburg,  or  the  spot 
in  Cambridge  where  Washington  took  command  of  the 
American  Army  without  a  remembrancer  of  any  kind. 
An  obelisk  seems  to  say,  "  Here."  Then  memory  and 
inquiry  and  history  perform  their  office.  It  is  a  grave 
misfortune  where  monuments,  as  in  the  quaint  old  Bohe- 
mian capital,  Prague,  glorify  the  wrong  side.  Some 
statues  there  are  in  praise  of  men  who  crushed  down 
Italy's  attempt  toward  constitutional  freedom  or  who 
died  as  martyrs  to  superstition  and  false  principles. 
Since  monuments  are  in  the  highest  degree  educative, 
they  should  stand  at  the  crossroads  of  the  history  of 
liberty,  discovery,  religious  progress,  and  truth.  Such 
embodiments  are  most  effective,  if  erected  solely  as 
monuments,  commemorating  some  honored  event  or 
cherished  principle.  How  can  a  man  stand  where  John 
Eliot  preached,  or  by  his  grave,  without  feeling  that 
places  have  a  moral  interest,  and  by  the  principle  of 
sacred  association  bring  to  us  moments  of  exalted  feel- 
ing? Who  can  stand  on  the  site  of  Fort  Washington  and, 
looking  across  the  Hudson  to  the  heights  of  Fort  Lee, 
remember  Washington's  tears  as  he  wept,  "  with  the 
tenderness  of  a  child,"  when  he  saw  many  of  his  men, 
overpowered  by  numbers,  cut  down  and  bayoneted  by 
the  Hessians — who  can  think  of  the  long,  weary,  disas- 
trous retreat  and  the  sad,  dreary  march  to  Valley  Forge, 
uncheered  by  any  recent  triumph,  in  hunger  and  cold,  in 
exhaustion  from  long  keeping  the  field — who  can  in 
imagination  trace  the  footsteps  marked  by  blood  in  the 
snow,  and  yet  experience  no  new  and  permanent  appre- 
ciation of  the  price  of  our  liberties?  On  the  site  of  the 
haystack  at  Williamstown,  "  for  once  in  the  history  of 

centennial  tablet,  as  you  write,  "  Memorializing  in  bronze  the  names  of 
the  missionaries  who  laid  the  beginnings  of  foreign  missionary  work  in 
three  denominations."  I  will  send  the  design  and  wording,  before  cast- 
ing, to  you  for  approval  and  acceptance.  Yours  sincerely,  J.  Ackerman 
Coles. 


SALEM,   CENTER   OF   PILGRIMAGE  1 47 

the  world,  a  prayer-meeting  has  been  commemorated  by 
a  monument."  For  once,  probably  for  the  first  time,  the 
lay  ing-on-of -hands  is  immortalized  by  a  munificent  artistic 
memorial. 

Unveiling  the  Tablet 

When  God  gave  audience  to  Jacob,  when  angels  came 
down  from  heaven  to  commune  with  him,  the  man  set 
up  a  memorial  to  distinguish  the  place.  At  a  fresh  mani- 
festation of  the  power  of  God  in  the  history  of  the  early 
church  some  token  was  reared.  The  feeling  of  pious 
hearts  inclines  them  to  make  some  outward  expression 
of  their  inward  warmth  and  gratitude.  There  is  divine 
sanction  for  recognizing  events  which  change  the  face 
of  things,  not  only  with  our  lips,  but  with  some  generous 
landmark  which  shall  make  them  live  in  the  minds  of 
men.  It  accords  with  both  the  spirit  and  the  command 
of  Scripture  to  erect  a  pillar  that  visible  suggestion  may 
be  given  of  a  providential  occurrence  or  of  a  great  initial 
experience.  There  is  in  every  true  and  deep  life  that 
which  presents  to  the  mind  a  religion  of  places.  The  let- 
tered bronze  was  unveiled  and  dedicated  to  the  memory 
of  heroic  characters  and  to  the  perpetuation  of  their 
vitality  and  influence  in  the  lives  and  hearts  of  men. 
"  Their  bodies  are  buried  in  peace,  but  their  names  live 
evermore/'  Though  dead,  they  yet  speak,  and  will  con- 
tinue to  speak  until  the  last  hour  of  recorded  time. 
Brutus  felt  the  spirit  of  Caesar  in  his  tent  at  Philippi, 
and  exclaimed :  "  O  Julius  Caesar,  thou  art  mighty  yet ! 
Thy  spirit  walks  abroad !  "  So  wherever  the  gospel  is 
preached,  these  first  missionaries,  not  having  done  all  that 
was  latent  in  them  to  do,  shall  live  on.  Their  works  do 
follow  them,  enriching  both  earth  and  heaven.  Hymns 
and  music  had  been  provided  by  Miss  Emilie  S.  Coles, 
sister  of  the  donor,  the  words  being  written  by  their 


I48  THE   IMMORTAL   SEVEN 

father.  Thus  the  tablet  was  brought  forth  with  shoutings 
crying,  "  Grace,  Grace  to  it."  Persons  on  the  street 
riding  by  can  read  the  inscription.  Capitals  are  used  only 
for  the  soldiers  of  the  Cross  and  for  the  Saviour.  It  is 
bordered,  as  will  be  seen,  by  beauty.  It  assists  the 
imagination.  It  appeals  to  the  heart.  It  gives  power  to 
make  the  past  vivid  and  brings  some  valorous  souls 
back  through  one  hundred  years.  It  serves  to  kindle  and 
perpetuate  the  missionary  spirit.  It  occasions  a  review 
of  history  and  starts  a  campaign  of  concrete  religious 
education. 

What  Names  are  These ? 

These  are  the  first  Americans  that  ever  traversed  the 
sea  to  carry  abroad  the  gospel  of  great  David's  Greater 
Son.  Here,  shining  apart,  a  pole-star — others  forever 
can  only  approach  it — is  the  name  of  the  man  from 
the  Western  world  who  gained  among  the  pagans  in 
Asia  the  first  fruit  of  the  Cross,  the  first  Christian  trophy. 
He  was  the  first  man  from  these  two  continents  to  come 
with  rejoicing,  bringing  a  sheaf  with  him.  Such  honor 
belongs  to  Samuel  Newell.  Here  is  the  name  of  the 
knight  that  fought  the  dragon.  When  rulers  set  them- 
selves, and  took  counsel  together  against  the  Lord,  our 
champion  of  the  aggressive  system  adventured  to  beard 
these  evil  forces  in  their  high  places.  Our  thought  is 
sometimes  drawn  to  the  loneliness  of  Christ.  A  corollary 
of  this  is  the  loneliness  of  his  messengers.  Turn  the 
eyes  upon  the  loneliness  of  Gordon  Hall,  as  he  waves 
the  gospel  flag  and  attempts  to  keep  his  foothold  in  India. 
It  is  the  truth  and  not  the  number  that  in  the  end  pre- 
vails. He  embodied  the  spirit  of  the  missionary  age. 
Let  no  man,  while  admiring  his  associates,  begrudge  him 
his  coronet.  God  having  enriched  him  with  fine  gifts 
and  rare  qualities,  like  dying  Jacob  he  was  enabled  to 


f-  y  pwwWWWWWWluJMW-..,  JH'iiuwuiniMU),!  ji  i.i..nii..iiiii,.uiDM Him  nuwwunumm >i..i.  i.uuum . .     .n    iiii.uiiuii. am  u 

.'•V  ... 


TABLET  ON    TABERNACLE   CHURCH,   SALEM 


SALEM,   CENTER  OF   PILGRIMAGE  1 49 

testify  the  grace  of  God  and  to  communicate  religious 
assurance  to  those  who  were  with  him  when  he  gave 
up  his  spirit.  Like  Christiana  in  the  "  Pilgrim's  Prog- 
ress "  he  witnessed  a  good  confession  before  those  who 
followed  him  to  the  river's  side. 

I  bless  Thee,  for  the  quiet  rest  thy  servant  taketh  now, 
I  bless  thee,  for  his  blessedness  and  for  his  crowned  brow, 
For  every  weary  step  he  trod  in  faithful  following  thee, 
And  for  the  good  fight  foughten  well,  and  closed  right  valiantly. 

The  catalogue  of  the  world's  great  men  is  spoken  of 
as  short.  Here  is  one  whose  name  is  written  indelibly 
on  the  brief  list.  He  lighted  a  candle  that  shall  never 
be  put  out.  Time  was  when  Adoniram  Judson  stood  the 
only  ordained  missionary  in  the  Burman  Empire.  He 
made  the  first  Burman  converts  and  gathered  the  first 
Burman  congregation  of  Christians.  He  was  called  to 
"  fill  up  that  which  is  behind  in  the  afflictions  of  Christ." 
When  the  Saviour,  walking  to  Emmaus,  fell  in  with  two 
disciples,"  they  persuaded  him  to  abide  with  them.  He 
had  passed  through  such  suffering  that  his  face  was  not 
recognized  by  them,  but  he  was  made  known  to  them  in 
the  breaking  of  bread.  When  he  reached  out  his  hands 
to  break  the  bread  they  saw  the  prints  of  the  nails.  In 
like  manner  at  a  table  the  scene  was  brought  to  mind 
by  others — he  himself  always  omitted  such  matters  from 
his  discourse — when  Judson  was  so  roughly  seized  by 
"  Spotted  Face  "  at  Ava  and  so  bound  with  cords  that 
they  cut  his  flesh  and  left  scars.  The  conversation  took 
such  a  turn  that  at  length,  drawing  back  the  cuffs  of  his 
coat,  he  said,  "  There  they  are." 

These  names  suggest  not  men  merely,  but  a  move- 
ment. It  is  the  era  of  modern  missions,  and  surpasses  in 
interest  and  importance  any  such  aggressive  undertaking 
since  the  age  of  the  apostles.     The  nineteenth  century 


150  THE   IMMORTAL   SEVEN 

began  with  just  one  convert  from  heathenism.  This 
single  convert  was  baptized  three  days  before  the  century 
opened,  and  these  men  were  then  in  training,  and  in 
about  a  dozen  years  started  to  proclaim  to  pagans  the 
glad  tidings  first  heralded  by  angels  above  Judea's  plains. 
He  who  holds  the  stars  in  his  right  hand  and  knows 
what  is  best  for  his  church,  by  a  chain  of  providences  saw 
fit  to  withdraw  two  of  these  men  from  their  sphere  of  use- 
fulness in  India  to  give  energy  and  coherence  to  the  work 
at  home  and  to  extend  it  greatly.  Samuel  Nott,  whom 
Judson  styles,  "  my  earliest  missionary  associate,"  was  an 
active,  solitary,  speaking  representative  of  this  missionary 
band  for  nineteen  full  years  after  all  his  associates  at  the 
ordination  in  Salem  were  wearing  their  crowns.  Luther 
Rice,  by  developing  the  domestic  side  of  the  work,  by 
organizing  unity,  and  by  enlisting  the  forces  of  a  great 
communion  that  had  never  made  an  adequate  expression 
worthy  of  its  strength  and  resources,  probably  did  as 
much  as  all  the  rest  together  to  establish  the  home  base 
without  which  there  can  be  no  permanent  foreign  mis- 
sionary work.  These  intrepid  spirits  kindled  a  fire  of 
devotion  to  missions  in  our  churches  never,  we  believe, 
to  be  quenched.  They  come  off  well  in  a  test  which  has 
been  proposed  as  a  measure  of  greatness,  that  prime 
workers  should  initiate  their  successors,  advance  them 
into  the  full  recognition  of  others,  and  transfer  to  them 
power,  and  let  them  unfold  all  their  talents.  Having 
smoothed  many  difficulties,  alive  still  in  the  heroism  and 
sacrifices  of  those  who  have  followed  them,  our  mis- 
sionary pioneers  are  at  work  to-day  potentially  in  very 
many  of  the  churches  of  Christendom.  We  shall  fit- 
tingly think  of  these  chivalrous  messengers  as  young. 
Their  labors  closed  at  their  climax.  Others  grow  old, 
but  these  exemplars  are  endowed  with  immortal  youth. 
At  the  century's  close  we  have  come  to  wipe  away  the 


SALEM,   CENTER  OF   PILGRIMAGE  151 

dust  from  the  earlier  picture  of  them,  to  retouch  it  and 
re  frame  it,  and  hold  it  up  to  men  that  they  should  admire 
it.  There  is  a  beautiful  fancy  of  pagan  mythology,  which 
contends  that  soldiers  who  have  been  distinguished  in 
battle  are  allowed  to  meet  in  the  happy  fields  of  Elysium 
and  talk  over  the  events  of  the  contest  in  which  they 
engaged. 

Hark!  Hark!  my  soul,  angelic  songs  are  swelling 
O'er  earth's  green  fields  and  ocean's  wave-beat  shore. 

Let  us  believe  with  Socrates  that  the  heroes  and  sages 
and  martyrs  of  the  past  are  not  indifferent,  in  the  present, 
to  the  sacred  objects  for  which  they  gave  up  their  lives. 
The  stray  Indians  who  once  roamed  over  these  acres  had 
an  odd  superstition  that,  on  penalty  of  never  prospering 
more,  it  was  necessary  for  them  never  to  pass  the  grave 
of  certain  famous  persons  without  laying  and  leaving 
some  token  of  regard  thereupon.  Let  us  not  be  less 
reverent  than  they. 

The  Sacred  Seven  who  gave  their  lives  first  for  Amer- 
ican liberty  on  the  green  at  Lexington,  had  nothing  to  rest 
on  but  their  faith  and  their  hope.  They  became  the  in- 
spiration and  the  spur  of  patriotism  in  this  land  forever. 
The  Immortal  Seven  who  unfurled  abroad  the  banner  of 
the  Cross,  have  now  the  distinction  of  showing  to  all 
who  come  after  them  how  excellent  and  how  elevated 
humanity  can  become. 


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